nuclear-news

A committee under Japan’s Nuclear Safety Commission has been reviewing the country’s nuclear disaster prevention guidelines, trying to learn lessons from the worst nuclear disaster since 1986.

It is considering creating a 30-km (18-mile) radius around nuclear power plants where residents should be ready to take shelter or prepare to evacuate, a draft document compiled by the NSC secretariat and released by the NSC on Thursday showed.

This compares with a current zone of a radius up to 10 km. It is also considering recommending that local authorities in a 50-km radius from plants be prepared to provide iodine tablets that help prevent thyroid cancers from radiation exposure.

The committee is planning to revise the draft document and finalize recommendations on evacuation zones next month. It plans to come up with a mid-term review this year, while it may take years to fully revise the guidelines, an official at the NSC secretariat said.

About 80,000 residents were forced to evacuate from a 20-km radius from the Fukushima Daiichi plant after the radiation crisis and some 30,000 more left the 20-30-km radius zone, though some are starting to come back……

The United States and some other countries had advised its citizens to stay out of a 80-km radius of the Fukushima plant. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/21/us-japan-nuclear-idUSTRE79K24420111021