Fukushima residents being forced to move back to radioactive wasteland

by Vicki Batts, Natural News:

Would you want to return home if it meant living in radioactive conditions similar to Chernobyl? Some 6,000 Japanese citizens are being urged by the government to return to their homes in the nuclear wasteland created by the Fukushima disaster. Greenpeace reports that radiation levels in the area are still similar to that of Chernobyl, which to most people, would indicate the area is not ready for human inhabitants.

Government officials are reportedly planning on slashing housing support for the thousands of people that had been evacuated from the village of Iitate on March 31, on which date the evacuation order will end. It will have been just a short six years since the nuclear disaster occurred.

The village is located just 24 miles away from the power plant. According to Fox News, the Japanese government has told the former Iitate inhabitants that they have finished cleaning up the area and have decreased the average radiation level in the air to a mere 0.8 microsieverts per hour – a level that international organizations have recognized as safe for human life. The government announced that it would be discontinuing housing assistance to the affected residents one year after they have returned to their homes in Iitate.

Unsurprisingly, the government’s announcement has been met with skepticism from the locals, and a hefty amount of criticism from environmental groups and radiation experts from around the world. They say that the Japanese government is merely trying to save face — and money — by forcing the residents of Iitate to return to an unsafe environment.

Jans Vande Putte, a radiation specialist with environmental group Greenpeace and one of the authors of a report on the cleanup efforts in Iitate, told Fox News, “The Japanese government just wants to say that we can overcome. It’s like they’re running a PR campaign to say that everything is okay and we can now go back to normal.”

The Fukushima nuclear accident is considered to be the worst nuclear disaster since the Chernobyl meltdown happened in 1986. After a 9.0 earthquake rocked Japan, the tsunami that followed destroyed the backup generators at the Fukushima plant. Without the emergency generators, proper cooling could not take place — and three nuclear meltdowns ensued, along with explosions of hydrogen-air chemicals and the release of radioactive materials into the surrounding environment.

Even though the Japanese government insists that the radiation in and around the homes of Iitate, many experts disagree with their assertion.

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