FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

On Urgent Request concerning Planned Evacuation Zone Classification
of Iitate Village and surround areas

April 17, 2011

The village of Iitate, Fukushima Prefecture is located northwest of TEPCO Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant that has caused a disaster. Although a southeastern portion of the village is sited in the 30km zone where Indoor Evacuation Recommendation is issued after the accident, the village is largely located outside the extent of recommended indoor evacuation. However, according to the radiation dose rate measured at the monitoring post adjacent to the village office building in the evening of March 15, a high level 45 micro-Sievert per hour was detected. Though the level has since declined, the high level measurement, roughly 100 times the natural background radiation has remained.


On March 28 and 29, Radiation Contamination Investigation Team with Tetsuji Imanaka of Kyoto University Research Reactor Institute as a representative has conducted a detailed study on the local distribution of radiation dose rate as well as a soil and water sampling survey at the site. As a result, the team discovered that some areas outside the 30km zone where the hourly dose rate has reached 20 to 30 micro-Sievert per hour ; therefore it is estimated that the cumulative radiation exposure (measured outdoors) in these areas are reaching as high as 45 milli-Sievert (mSv) during the 3 weeks following March 15. Additionally, the high levels of Caesium-134 and Caesium-137 have accumulated in the soil, and their high dose rates will likely remain in the long term.


As the state of contamination becomes gradually evident, the Japanese Government has designated Iitate Village areas as Planned Evacuation Zone on April 11. Nevertheless, for a month of the planning period the villagers will continue to reside and be exposed to the radiation. Therefore, any additional time spent till an agreement is reached between the government and the village will result in needless exposure to the villagers. Moreover, a clear lack of prospect over their future lives and livelihood has caused anxiety and confusion among them. Deeply concerned with this situation, Iitate Village Support Team and FoE Japan have submitted today an urgent request to the Prime Minister Naoto KAN concerning Planned Evacuation Zone Classification of Iitate Village and surround areas.

Please review the attachment for the content of this request.

Koji Itonaga, Representative, Iitate Village Support Team
Junichi Mishiba, Secretary General, Friends of the Earth Japan

(end)

You can see the request from the link below.
>An Urgent Request Concerning the Set Up of the Planned Evacuation Zones for Iitate Village and Related Areas.[PDF]

(Related documents)
>The press release by the Iitate Village Support Team (April 4th)[PDF]


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