Evacuees get home visits of five hours

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

No-go zone entry after Golden Week OK'd; animal cull begins

Kyodo

FUKUSHIMA — The government will allow those who evacuated from the 20-km radius no-go zone around the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant to visit their homes for up to five hours, officials said Monday.

Recovery on track: A bullet train from Tokyo passes a disaster waste dump near Sendai on Monday as shinkansen services linking the two stations resumed for the first time since March 11. KYODO PHOTO

The announcement was made as prefectural officials were preparing to cull dying livestock in the fallout-contaminated area.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan said at the Diet that he would like to see the evacuees' visits begin after the Golden Week holidays through early May. The details were explained to municipalities in the 20-km hot zone, which was legally designated as off-limits last week.

The temporary visits will be limited to five hours to keep radiation doses to 1 millisievert or less. Only one person will be allowed to return per household, excluding those under 15 years old and the elderly.

The government has also decided to ban them from bringing out food and farm animals. Authorization to remove cars and pets is still being discussed, officials said.

Residents, especially those who left immediately after the nuclear emergency began in the wake of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, have been clamoring to get back to their homes to collect belongings.

The government ordered residents in the 20-km hot zone to evacuate and told those within 20 to 30 km of the plant to stay indoors or leave voluntarily.

Last Thursday, the government announced that household representatives will be allowed to visit their homes for up to two hours on condition they move into the 20-km hot zone on buses and in groups accompanied by local authorities. They will also have to wear protective clothing and carry dosimeters and undergo radiation screening afterward.

In Fukushima Prefecture the same day, six prefectural workers in protective outfits entered the 20-km hot zone to begin the process of culling starving livestock.

While there is no legal stipulation on slaughtering livestock in the area, the prefectural government decided to kill the animals for public health reasons, local officials said.

According to a livestock hygiene service center in the prefecture, the culling operations will be focused on Minamisoma's Odaka district, where 887 cows, 80 horses, about 6,200 pigs and around 260,000 chickens were raised as of October.

The Odaka district was struck by the massive tsunami on March 11, which destroyed or swept away some of the 91 livestock barns in the area.

The prefecture will only cull animals that are on the verge of death and attempt to get the owners' permission, if possible, the officials said.

But contacting the owners is expected to be difficult because the residents were scattered helter-skelter by the evacuation order. Last week, the central government upgraded the evacuation order to include a legally enforceable ban on keeping residents out.

Meanwhile, Kan said Monday he will lay out a plan to mend Japan's tattered public finances, although sizable spending increases will obviously be needed to rebuild the Tohoku region.

"When we discuss the second extra budget in fiscal 2011 for full-scale reconstruction, I'd like to also set a course for fiscal consolidation," Kan said in a session of the House of Councilors audit panel.

Kan and other Cabinet members said the government would most likely need to rely on issuance of government bonds when they draw up the second extra budget, unlike the first one, which was drafted without new borrowings.

Courtesy:Japantimes