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Japan says may extend nuclear evacuations
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By Shinichi Saoshiro and Yoko Nishikawa
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan said on Monday it may extend some parts of an evacuation zone around its crippled nuclear plant if tests show high radiation outside the area, imposed after an earthquake and tsunami...
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Tokyo Electric Power Co President Masataka Shimizu is mobbed by the media upon his arrival for a meeting with Japan's Vice Trade Minister Motohisa Ikeda at the Nuclear Disaster Countermeasures Office in Fukushima, northern Japan April 11, 2011, one month after the devastating earthquake and tsunami. Japan plans to extend the evacuation zone around its crippled nuclear plant because of high radiation levels, local media reported on Monday, with engineers no closer to regaining control of six reactors hit by a giant tsunami one month ago.
Credit: Reuters/Issei Kato
By Shinichi Saoshiro and Yoko Nishikawa
TOKYO |
Mon Apr 11, 2011 2:21am EDT
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan said on Monday it may extend some parts of an evacuation zone around its crippled nuclear plant if tests show high radiation outside the area, imposed after an earthquake and tsunami sparked the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl.
Japan has steadfastly refused to extend its 20 km (12 mile) evacuation zone, despite international concerns over radiation spreading from the six damaged nuclear reactors in Fukushima which engineers are still struggling to bring under control a month after they were wrecked by the 15-meter tsunami.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said the existing area was sufficient as the risk of an accident was now lower.
But the government might extend the evacuation zone if tests show high levels of accumulated radiation in specific areas, he said. The Asahi newspaper said evacuations may extend 30 km out from the plant.
"This won't be based on a radius zone-type (evacuation)...from the perspective of accumulated radiation, we need appropriate steps to ensure safety," Edano told reporters.
Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan told parliament last month that widening the area would force 130,000 people to move in addition to 70,000 already displaced.
Residents of one village, Iitate which is 40 km from the Fukushima Daiichi plant, have been told to prepare for evacuation because of prolonged exposure to radiation, a local official told Reuters by phone. The village has a population of 5,000.
The International Atomic Energy Agency has urged Japan to extend the zone and countries like the United States and Australia have advised citizens to stay 80 km away from the plant.
The Japan Times said authorities would soon forcibly close the 20 km zone, stopping people returning to their shattered homes to pick through the rubble for belongings.
The president of Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO), which operates the plant, plans to visit the area on Monday, the first by Masatake Shimizu since the March 11 disaster.
Shimizu has all but disappeared from public view apart from a brief apology shortly after the crisis began and has spent some of the time since in hospital.
Fukushima Governor Yuhei Sato was quoted by media as saying he would refuse to meet Shimizu during his visit.
Sato has criticized the evacuation policy, saying residents in a 20-30 km radius were initially told to stay indoors and then advised to evacuate voluntarily.
"Residents in the 20-30 km radius were really confused about what to do." Sato told NHK television on Sunday.
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Comments (4)
hilirb wrote:
The Japanese nuclear disaster is one that will never be controlled for the next century. This is because the so called “spent nuclear rods” have a life of 240,000 years. Germany tried storing their spent rods deep in the salt mines. What happened is that the heat from the still alive spent fuel rods melted the salt, the salt corroded the containers, and the leaking fuel contaminated their water supply. That is why Germany is supposed to be out of the nuclear power in about 10 years. All countries should follow their example. Also, nuclear power is the main cause of global warming because the suystem requires the oceans and rivers to cool the reactors. The oceans and rivers are being heated 24 hours a day and the accumulated effect is warmer oceans and rivers due to the 1000 nuclear reactors that are heating the earth’s waters. We will have jacuzzi temperature waters within a not too distant future. With that and the antifreeze that BP and Exxon dumped to control oil spills, the artic and antartic will lose most of the ice if nuclear power is allowed to continue. Nuclear power should have never been allowed but the money hungry lobbyist and electrical generating companies thought it would be a money producing industry even with the pitfalls and dangers. Let our voices be heard to stop Nuclear Power by the end of this year to save the earth. Nuclear power is never safe. There are 3,600,000 pounds of spent nuclear fuel rods at the Japanese plants that are uncontrolled and will generate heat and radiation for 240,000 years. It may already be too late.
Apr 10, 2011 11:32pm EDT -- Report as abuse
Ralphooo wrote:
This is pretty much what anti-nuclear activists have been warning us about for the past 50 years. I never agreed with them — and I still think nuclear power plants can theoretically be designed and operated safely — but finally I am forced to admit that the naysayers have a point. Humans never do things perfectly. In fact, we usually make shockingly bad mistakes.
I see now that even excellent engineering and planning cannot ensure safety until our species stops letting private laziness and greed interfere with serious work. And that day will come… never. It is just not like us to be consistently responsible, day after day, decade after decade.
Nuclear power has little margin for error; humans have little capacity for error-free behavior. Put those elementary facts together and what have you got? One more proof that there are presently too many of us, an excess of human pups, drawing down the resources of a shrinking planet.
Apr 10, 2011 11:35pm EDT -- Report as abuse
space_weepul wrote:
hilirb, I think it is important to note that nuclear power does not produce greenhouse gases. Also, coal, oil and natural gas produce heat that is very, very similar to heat produced by nuclear fuel in the production of energy. The steam created by a coal based power plant is just as hot and is cooled in the same fashion as the steam created in a nuclear fuel based power plant.
Unless we are all ready to “return to nature” and allow perhaps a fifth of our fellow humans die, we must continue to use energy. If oil becomes expensive, we will burn coal. Coal burning releases radiation in many cases.
I think we might use more natural gas. I think nuclear power is cool and unavoidable as a power source if we are to continue to live in the manner we currently do without destroying the planet for ourselves.
Apr 11, 2011 1:25am EDT -- Report as abuse
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