Japan: Some Evacuees May Be Kept out for Years - Wall Street Journal

TOKYO—Radioactive contamination may keep some areas around the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex off limits for years, Japan's government said Monday.

"Some places may have to be kept off-limits to residents for a long period of time even after clean-up operations are undertaken," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said at a press conference. His comments followed Friday's announcement that levels of radioactive contamination were actually higher in some areas in the 20-kilometer evacuation zone than within the plant compound itself.

In its first detailed survey of the evacuation zone around the plant, the education ministry said it found spots—mostly within three kilometers of the plant—where annual radiation exposure could reach 200 to 500 millisieverts. The government requires people to evacuate if the cumulative dosage is likely to exceed 20 millisieverts per year, and the annual limit for nuclear-plant workers in normal circumstances is 50 millisieverts (250 millisieverts in emergency conditions).

The discovery of elevated radiation, which came even as Tokyo Electric Power Co. has reported a sharp drop in levels inside the plant, poses fresh challenges to official efforts to allow evacuees to return permanently to their homes. The government had hoped to narrow the evacuation zone gradually after January, the target date for Tepco to bring the damaged reactors fully under control and stop deadly radiation emissions.

But the education ministry's measurements of radiation levels at 50 locations within the 20-kilometer radius showed annual exposure could exceed 100 millisieverts in 15 locations, including one where it could reach 508 millisieverts. Tepco has said the level stands at just 0.4 millisievert per year along the boundary of the plant compound, well below the normal limit of one millisievert for ordinary citizens.

"Radiation spreads like a typhoon," said an official with the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, the main nuclear regulator. "The amount of radioactive substance can be small at the eye of the typhoon, but very large outside."

Mr. Edano said various options are under consideration to help people who may be displaced for a long time, including government purchase or rental of their land. A detailed policy will be determined in consultation with local authorities based on the results of a further radiation survey and decontamination programs, he said.

Write to Mitsuru Obe at mitsuru.obe@dowjones.com

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