» Planned decontamination of residential area has not finished yet

2014/09/22

More than half of the 74 municipalities in the Tohoku and Kanto regions that have planned decontamination of residences in areas where surveys of radioactive pollution are needed have yet to complete the work, according to Mainichi newspaper.

The survey conducted by Mainichi newspaer showed that as of the end of June, 40 cities, towns and villages had yet to complete planned decontamination of homes, with at least 311,700 still needing work. In two municipalities — the Miyagi Prefecture town of Yamamoto and the Fukushima Prefecture town of Shinchi — residential decontamination had not begun at all.

Altogether, 104 municipalities in the eight prefectures of Iwate, Miyagi, Fukushima, Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma, Saitama and Chiba have been designated by the environment minister as areas where surveys of radioactive pollution are needed.

Of the 104 municipalities, 74 have made plans to decontaminate residents’ homes. Twenty-nine of those that have not yet completed this work are located in Fukushima Prefecture, which has a large number of houses subject to decontamination. At least 286,002 homes in these 29 municipalities still need to be decontaminated. Another four municipalities are located in Tochigi Prefecture, four more in Miyagi Prefecture, two in Ibaraki Prefecture and one in Gunma Prefecture. In these four prefectures, 25,719 residences remain to be cleaned.

When asked how many homes would be decontaminated in the future, three municipalities did not reply. One of them explained that data was still being compiled. The Miyagi Prefecture town of Yamamoto has planned decontamination of 1,495 homes, while the town of Shinchi in Fukushima Prefecture has planned to decontaminate 600 homes, but the work has yet to commence in either of the municipalities.

When questioned why work was not progressing, many municipalities cited a lack of temporary storage areas for radioactive waste.

In addition, five municipalities in Iwate, Ibaraki and Fukushima prefectures said that they had finished decontamination at all of the planned locations, but that there was a need for additional decontamination in spots where relatively high levels of radiation were detected, such as under the eaves of homes.
<Media Report>
Majority of municipalities planning residential decontamination haven’t finished work (Mainichi Newspaper)

Tags:contamination, decontamination, news

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