Nuclear disaster evacuees "forced" to return to Fukushima - Greenpeace

PanARMENIAN.Net - Even though radiation levels in a village near the site of the Fukushima nuclear disaster still exceed international guidelines, its evacuated residents are being coerced to return, Deutsche Welle cited a Greenpeace report as saying.

Residents from the Japanese ghost village of Iitate will be allowed to return to their former homes at the end of March - the first time since they were forced to flee the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011. That's the date the Japanese government has set to lift evacuation orders.

But according to environmental organization Greenpeace, it's uncertain whether many will want to. Greenpeace says tests it has carried out on homes in Iitate show that despite decontamination, radiation levels are still dangerously high - but that's not stopping the Japanese governmenment from pressuring evacuees from returning, under threat of losing financial support.

Those who refuse to go back to their former homes, and are dependent on the Japanese government's financial help, are faced with a dilemma. After a year from when an area is declared safe again to live in, evacuated residents will see their compensation payments terminated by the government.

The nuclear disaster led to more than 160,000 people being evacuated and displaced from their homes. Of these, many tens of thousands are still living in temporary accommodation six years on.

The village of Iitate, lying northwest of the destroyed reactors at Fukushima Daiichi power plantand from which 6,000 citizens had to be evacuated, was one of the most heavily contaminated following the nuclear disaster.