Last Fukushima evacuation center to close

December 18, 2013

Fukushima residents to vacate last evacuation center by year-end

http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20131218p2g00m0dm081000c.html

FUKUSHIMA, Japan (Kyodo) -- The occupants of the last evacuation center housing people displaced by the March 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis will leave it by the end of this year, the mayor of an evacuated town in Fukushima Prefecture said Wednesday.

"We will step forward to rebuild their lives," Shiro Izawa, mayor of Futaba, which hosts the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex, told reporters after a town assembly meeting.

As of Tuesday, seven evacuees from Futaba were living at the center in Kazo, Saitama Prefecture, which was once used as a high school building, and all of them, aged 60 or older, have found new accommodation, according to the municipal government.

Izawa said, "We will continue providing administrative services to the evacuees so they will not feel inconvenienced."

The entire population of Futaba was evacuated in the wake of the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi plant on March 11, 2011, and the headquarters of the municipal government was transferred to the former school building before being removed to Iwaki, Fukushima, in June this year.

The evacuation center will officially shut down early next year following maintenance work, Izawa said.