DHAKA: Radiation cleanup in some of the most contaminated towns around Fukushima’s nuclear power plant is far behind schedule, so residents will have to wait a few more years before returning.

Japan environment ministry officials said they are revising the cleanup schedule for six of 11 municipalities in an exclusion zone from which residents were evacuated after three reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant went into meltdown following the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

The original plan called for completing all decontamination by next March, reports The Straits Times.

Nobody has been allowed to live in the zone again yet, though the government has allowed day visits to homes and businesses in some areas after initial decontamination efforts, said Shigeyoshi Sato, an environment ministry official in charge of decontamination.

‘We would have to extend the cleanup process, by one year, two years or three years, we haven’t exactly decided yet,’ he said.

BDST: 1705 HRS, OCT 21, 2013
RoR/JCK