New evacuation standards essential

Japan to set nuclear evacuation standards

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/20121122_11.html

Japan's nuclear regulatory body has started working on new sets of standards for issuing government orders for evacuating people in the event of a nuclear accident.

The Nuclear Regulation Authority held a meeting of a panel of experts on Thursday as the first step in efforts to draw up the new standards by the end of the year. Also under review is when to instruct people to take iodine tablets as a precaution against thyroid damage.

The participating experts confirmed that Japan will take standards set by the International Atomic Energy Agency as a guide to adopting its own. They say that the standards will be based on the status of reactors and monitoring data on the amount of released radiation.

Some members of the panel say a system for forecasting levels of radiation in the environment should be used to back up monitoring efforts.

In the Fukushima Daiichi accident in March last year, the earthquake and tsunami knocked out part of a network for monitoring radiation levels in the environment.

The existing standards for deciding evacuations did not work in the accident because the standards relied on data from a system for forecasting the spread of radiation, which was disabled by a blackout.

Local governments are due to work out their own evacuation plans by March next year by incorporating the new standards to be set by the panel.