65 hours is a long time

 April 11, 2014

Realistic' evacuation of area around Aomori nuke plant would take 65 hrs: simulation

http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20140411p2a00m0na007000c.html

AOMORI -- It would take 65 hours and 10 minutes to evacuate all of some 73,000 people living within 30 kilometers of a local nuclear plant in the wake of an accident, according to a prefectural government simulation.

According to the simulation results released on April 10, the time was based on the "most realistic" of 125 evacuation scenarios in the case of an accident at Tohoku Electric Power Co.'s Higashidori Nuclear Power Plant in the village of Higashidori. If authorities managed to implement efficient traffic control measures, however, the prefecture said that the evacuation could be completed in as little as 27 hours and 20 minutes.

The longest evacuation simulation, supposing a nuclear accident during Aomori's snowy winter, clocked in at 70 hours and 50 minutes. This scenario also imagined only 20 percent of residents leaving before an official evacuation directive was issued, and that 95 percent would flee in their cars.

The simulations, conducted by a private third-party firm, tested a wide range of conditions including the time of day, the season and the percentage of residents evacuating on their own initiative or using their own vehicles.

The most "realistic" scenario tested supposed an evacuation directive issued at night following a nuclear accident sometime between spring and fall, with 60 percent of residents fleeing of their own accord before the directive, and 90 percent of residents using their own cars. Under those conditions, the evacuation took just over 65 hours to complete.

The simulation showed that "if everyone tries to evacuate at once, individual evacuation times tend to increase," the prefecture stated.

April 11, 2014(Mainichi Japan)