Japan Press Weekly

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2013 March 27 - April 2 TOP3 [NUCLEAR CRISIS]

Hard to evacuate residents living within 30km-zone in nuclear accident

Most of the 21 prefectures in designated evacuation zones have recently drawn up an evacuation plan in the event of a nuclear accident, but they are all worrying about how to evacuate their residents to safer areas.

The national government, based on the Urgent Protective Action Planning Zone (UPZ) set by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), defines the 30km-UPZ as areas where residents are required to stay indoors or evacuate in a severe nuclear accident. The 30km zone covers 136 municipalities in 21 prefectures affecting about 4.8 million people.

Onagawa NPP
Sasaki Koetsu, mayor of Misato Town, a part of which is located in a 30km-zone from the Onagawa nuclear power plant in Miyagi Prefecture, said that he put forth an evacuation plan in preparation for a nuclear accident but he does not want the national government to use the plan as an excuse to reactivate the plant. The mayor said, “As long as the plant is not decommissioned, our anxiety won’t go away.”

Tokai NPP
About one million people live within a 30km-zone from the Tokai Daini nuclear power plant in Ibaraki Prefecture. Mito City, where the prefectural government office is located, is also in the zone.

In response to an Akahata inquiry, representatives of three bus companies operating in the zone said that they have no idea how many buses they will be able to prepare in an emergency when radiation levels exceed critical levels.

Even if, for example, the prefecture charters 1,000 50-seat buses, they will be able to transport only 50,000 residents, far short of the one million in total. To shuttle back and forth between shelters and the evacuation zone will be extremely difficult due to traffic congestion associated with panic.

What about the socially vulnerable? Hospitals with a capacity of more than 100 beds are also puzzling over how they transport their inpatients. The four or five 10-seat vehicles, the number of cars each hospital currently has, are far from enough.

The clerical manager of a hospital told Akahata that ambulances will be necessary to carry patients on respirators who need 24-hour care but that the hospital has not been able to secure emergency vehicles yet.

An official of the Ibaraki prefectural government said with a sigh, “The national government says to us to evacuate when radiation levels reach 500μSv/h, but we cannot make a more accurate plan unless the government provides more detailed information.

Murakami Tatsuya, mayor of Tokai Village where 38,000 people live, said to Akahata, “It will be impossible for the national government to even think of restarting the plant without solving the evacuation problem in case a severe accident occurs.”

Japanese Communist Party member of the Ibaraki prefectural assembly, Ouchi Kumiko said, “The one-million person evacuation plan sounds impossible in the first place. The plan must be formulated with the participation of residents and must not be drawn up with the view to resume operations of the plant reactors.

Shimane NPP
The Shimane nuclear power plant is the only plant in Japan which is located in a prefecture’s center of government. The government office building is only nine kilometers from the plant. No alternative facilities for administrative functions are even proposed in the event of a severe accident. The prefecture needs to shelter about 470,000 residents and 5,600 hospital inpatients from the 30km-zone but has no place to accommodate such a massive number of evacuees.

JCP member of the Shimane prefectural assembly Omura Toshinari said, “We have many bridges here in this city. If an earthquake destroys the bridges, we cannot evacuate efficiently. While the prefecture cannot even lay out an effective evacuation plan, I cannot stand that the national government is talking about the resumption of the nuclear plant here.”

Genkai NPP
The Genkai nuclear power plant in Saga Prefecture contains several islands within a 30km radius from the plant. An island called Oshima in the neighboring prefecture of Nagasaki has a population of 1,300, but the only ferry operating between the island and an island on the opposite shore can only carry 150 people at maximum legal capacity.

An official of the municipality said to Akahata, “We know that the ferry can carry 500 people but we will face legal consequences. So, we will have to use all the fishing boats here to run back and forth to transport people but this is possible only when the sea is quiet.”

Ikinoshima Island has 16,000 residents living in the designated evacuation zone. The island has the same problem as Oshima Island and has no way to evacuate the inpatients of a 200-bed hospital located inside the zone.