Evacuation Order Fully Lifted for Fukushima Village of Kawauchi

Fukushima, June 14 (Jiji Press)--The Japanese government lifted at midnight Monday (3 p.m. GMT) its evacuation order for two districts in Kawauchi, a village near the disaster-crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power station. The move means that the village as a whole is no longer subject to evacuation relating to radiation from the Tokyo Electric Power Co. Holdings Inc. <9501> plant in Fukushima Prefecture, northeastern Japan, which was damaged in the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami. In October 2014, the government lifted the evacuation order for some other parts of Kawauchi, but kept the order intact for the two districts in question--Ogi and Kainosaka--while lowering the designation for them to areas where preparations are made for the removal of the order and residents' return home from limited habitation areas where visits only during the daytime are permitted. In the two districts, a total of 51 people in 19 households were registered as residents as of June 1. Following the completion of decontamination work in the two districts, the Kawauchi village government launched in November last year a program to allow residents to stay overnight in their homes to prepare for permanent returns. With only two people from one household taking advantage of the program, however, only a limited number of residents are expected to return to Kawauchi immediately after the lifting of the evacuation order. To address lingering radiation concerns, the central government and the village will hand out dosimeters to residents. Additional decontamination work will be conducted if radiation hot spots are found. The Japanese government plans to lift all of its evacuation orders in Fukushima by the end of March 2017, except those for so-called difficult-to-return zones, where radiation levels are very high and entry is banned in principle. END