» Nursing care facilities and hospital have yet to establish evacuation plan

2014/07/16

Many nursing care facilities and hospitals located within Japan’s nuclear power plant evacuation zones have yet to establish evacuation plans,according to the Mainichi Newspaper.

The finding comes as the Nuclear Regulation Authority on July 16 approved the new safety features of Sendai Nuclear Power Plant in a step toward its restart.

Of the 875 nursing care facilities in Japan located within a 30-kilometer radius of a nuclear power plant, 621, or 70 percent, do not have any predetermined destinations for evacuation in the event of a nuclear crisis. Likewise, 633 hospitals, or 75 percent of the 838 hospitals within 30 kilometers of a nuclear plant, have not secured evacuation facilities.

The Mainichi Newpaper sent questionnaires to prefectural governments and 125 municipalities within 30 kilometers of a nuclear plant, excluding the 10 municipalities where evacuation orders remain in place due to the ongoing Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear crisis. All but one of the surveyed municipalities responded.

The survey showed that 40 percent of the surveyed municipalities — a total of 49 — had yet to lay down evacuation plans. In Miyagi, Ibaraki, Niigata, Shizuoka and Toyama prefectures, where 40 of these municipalities are located, none of the 377 care facilities and 412 hospitals had secured places for their staff and patients to evacuate.

Municipalities in Kagoshima Prefecture, where the Sendai nuclear plant is located, and Aomori, Ishikawa, Shiga, Ehime and Nagasaki prefectures have finished designing evacuation plans for residents, but with a few exceptions, care facilities and hospitals have not found evacuation sites.

<Media Report>
Nursing facilities, hospitals lack evacuation plans for nuclear disasters (Mainichi Newspaper)

Tags:evacuation, news, restart of nuclear reactors

• Evacuation orders lifted in 3 municipalities today, one more tomorrow

• Court issues injunction to halt Takahama nuclear reactors

• Anti-nuclear group of India submitted a letter to the Japanese Government to oppose Japan-India nuclear agreement

• World Nuclear Victims Forum in Hiroshima closed with “Hiroshima Declaration”