10 years after the Fukushima nuclear disaster some residents can finally return home
- Residents of Katsurao village will be able to return to their homes on June 12 when an evacuation order in place since the 2011 nuclear disaster will be lifted
- Even more than a decade after the disaster, a zone totalling 337 square kilometres remains off-limits due to high radiation levels
Even more than a decade after the disaster, a zone totalling about 337 square kilometres remains subject to the order. Of the “difficult-to-return” zone, authorities have decided to end the designation for a 0.95 square km area in Katsurao, a village near the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, as radiation decontamination has progressed.
After the nuclear crisis was triggered by an enormous earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011, Katsurao became off-limits in its entirety. But the long-standing evacuation order was lifted in most parts of the village on June 12, 2016, in addition to a district being designated as the zone.
Katsurao Mayor Hiroshi Shinoki said at a press conference that the village has reached an agreement with Fukushima prefectural and government officials to lift the order for the small portion in the zone on the same date as six years ago.
“[The removal] will be a start instead of a goal,” said Masahiro Ishii, a senior vice-minister at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.
In the 16-square-km off-limits district in the northeastern part of the village, residents have been practising overnight stays since November in preparation for their full-scale returns, while the pace of decontamination work and efforts to improve infrastructure has been accelerating.
Among other five Fukushima municipalities which encompass the zone, the towns of Futaba and Okuma have been preparing to lift restrictions in June at the earliest, while the rest are planning to remove them in spring next year.
