Adapting public facilities to nuclear disasters

January 10, 2013

Hospitals, other facilities near N-plants to be refitted

The Yomiuri Shimbun

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T130109003780.htm

The Cabinet Office has decided to promote renovating hospitals and other public facilities within a five-kilometer radius of a nuclear plant to enable patients and the elderly to stay indoors if they cannot be easily evacuated in the event of a nuclear disaster, it has been learned.

About 12 billion yen is planned to be allocated for the measure in a supplementary budget for fiscal 2012, and will also cover the cost of supplying dosimeters to public facilities, according to an informed source.

Buildings that will be covered under the measure include hospitals, facilities for the elderly and schools within a five-kilometer radius of a nuclear plant.

These buildings will be refitted with airtight doors and windows to keep out radioactive materials released by a damaged nuclear power plant, as well as ventilation filters to remove such materials.

The budget will be provided as grants to prefectures hosting nuclear power plants.

Under the disaster management guidelines compiled by the Nuclear Regulation Authority, residents living within five kilometers of a nuclear plant must be evacuated as soon as possible in the event of a nuclear disaster.

However, when the nuclear crisis occurred at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant following the March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami, some bedridden hospital patients near the plant died after being forced to evacuate long distances.

Therefore, municipalities near nuclear power plants have called on the central government to help create facilities that can house the elderly and patients who may have difficulty evacuating immediately or on their own in the event of a nuclear disaster.