Over 100,000 Fukushima Prefecture residents can't return to hometowns

[AsahinaKimi]

In this photo taken July 26, 2011, playground equipment stands in front of Karino Elementary School which was used as an evacuation shelter in the town of Namie, Fukushima Prefecture, northeastern Japan. Japan's system to forecast radiation threats was working from the moment the nuclear crisis began. As officials planned a venting operation certain to release radioactivity into the air, the system predicted the elementary school would be directly in the path of the plume emerging from the tsunami-hit Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant. But the prediction helped no one. Nobody acted on it. The school, just over 10 kilometers from the plant, was not immediately cleared out. Quite the opposite. It was turned into a temporary evacuation center. (AP Photo)

More than 100,000 Fukushima Prefecture residents are still not able to return to their municipalities due to the ongoing nuclear disaster at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant, a Mainichi survey has found.

As of the end of August, a total of 101,931 residents from 12 cities, towns and villages in Fukushima Prefecture that are subject to a range of evacuation measures were forced to live outside their municipalities. Some locations near the crippled nuclear power plant are estimated to be contaminated with accumulated radiation doses of more than 500 millisieverts a year, diminishing residents' hopes of a homecoming anytime soon.

Even areas away from the plant are still suffering from a sharp decline in the number of tourists and sluggish financial conditions, underscoring the impact of the nuclear crisis that is plaguing Fukushima Prefecture six months on from the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that started it.

The Mainichi Shimbun asked 12 municipalities in the no-go zones, planned evacuation zones, and emergency evacuation preparation zone how many of their residents had been evacuated to other municipalities as of Aug. 31. The city of Minamisoma had the most evacuees, at 25,184, followed by the town of Namie at 20,115.

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