About Iitate

Over 200 households seek early return to Fukushima village reclassified over radiation

http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20120717p2a00m0na014000c.html

IITATE, Fukushima -- The Fukushima Prefecture village of Iitate was reclassified into three areas on July 17 based on annual radiation exposure, raising hope for about 210 households to return to their homes permanently in the near future for the first time since the outbreak of the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant on March 11, 2011.

While most Iitate residents will be allowed to resume their business or farming with some restrictions, those residents in an area contaminated with relatively high levels of radiation will continue to face many hurdles years ahead in returning to their hometown.

Iitate village was reclassified into three areas: those in the west and northeast that are getting ready for the lifting of evacuation orders (where about 800 residents in about 210 households are registered); those in residence-restricted areas in the central part to which residents are expected to be allowed to return to live within several years (about 5,260 registered residents in 1,660 households); and those in the difficult-to-return area in the Nagadoro district to which residents will not be allowed to return for the next five years in principle (270 registered residents in about 70 households).

At midnight on July 17, barricades were formed along the routes to the Nagadoro district, turning it into a no-entry zone. Residents had been able to enter the district freely until then. Meanwhile in the Sasu district, which was reclassified as an area getting ready for the lifting of the evacuation order, four elderly residents started cutting grass at a shrine. At 9 a.m. on the same day, during a ceremony held in front of the village office to send off a neighborhood watch group, Iitate Village Mayor Norio Kanno told about 50 villagers, "In order to spend days as evacuees at ease as much as possible, it is important that one's own home, village and hometown is protected."

The start of full-scale decontamination is expected to be delayed from January this year to around September this year. Under the plan worked out by the central government, entire residential areas in the village are supposed to be decontaminated by the end of March 2014, but the Nagadoro district that is contaminated with high levels of radiation does not fall within the scope of the decontamination plan. Nagadoro district chief Yoshitomo Shigihara, 61, has urged the village and the central government to decontaminate all of the district. "It looks as if only Nagadoro was abandoned. It ought to be decontaminated properly," he said.

Of the 11 municipalities in Fukushima Prefecture, Iitate is the fourth to have been reclassified. These efforts have not been going smoothly in the seven remaining municipalities due to concerns mainly about possible differences in the amounts of compensation. Residents in Kawauchi, Tamura and Minamisoma, for which the evacuation orders were lifted in April, are preparing to return to their homes.