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The Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) has released revised guidelines regarding nuclear disaster evacuation measures.
Changes to the guidelines were minor, but include those calling for stricter evacuation rules. The revised guidelines were finalized after a two-week public comment period from Jan 30, during which 3,155 comments were received from members of the public.
TBS reported Thursday that the guidelines include a recommendation for the immediate evacuation of residents living near nuclear power plants if estimated radiation doses reach 500 microsieverts per hour. The new guidelines also state that evacuation must be completed within around one week if projected radiation doses rise to 20 microsieverts per hour.
However, the rules reportedly provoked condemnation from some members of the public for failing to represent the public's wishes, for adopting high working dose levels and for failing to consider pregnant women and infants.
Under the NRA's new guidelines, areas within 5 kilometers of nuclear power plants are to be designated precautionary action zones. Residents living within these zones will be required to evacuate immediately in the event of an incident, even without confirmation that radioactive materials have been released. The guidelines also recommend that iodine be distributed to residences within 5 km in advance of crises.
Areas from five kilometers to 30 kilometers from plants are to be classified Preventative Emergency Action Zones. In these areas evacuation procedures and other measures must be drawn up by local governments in advance. However, some comments received from members of the public reportedly expressed the view that zones should cover wider areas. The NRA responded that the guidelines do not ban preventative measures beyond the established zones.
The NRA stated that local governments will have until March 18 to draw up their own evacuation procedures based on the NRA's latest guideline revision.
© Japan Today
10 Comments
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SauloJpn
Sorry, but it is really difficult to read anything coming from the NRA and take it seriously. Maybe in time, when they show they are competent during crisis and after. The blunders of last couple of years will be with them for a long time. As for the new guidelines, the only reaction they will get is: DUH or ATARIMAE
Wakarimasen
Will we have to pry these guidelines from their cold dead hands?
wanderlust
Just guidelines; subject to interpretation, modification, and rejection...
FightingViking
Wouldn't it be more simple - and effective - to just shut down the whole damned lot of NPPs ? Then no-one would have to worry about where they were living.
Moonraker
This will spread "confusion" among the locals. If there are evacuation measures, people might imagine something might go wrong. Wasn't that why there were none before?
sengoku38
5km? 30km? Didn't they learn anything yet? You can't just draw concentric circles like the Soviets did. You have to look at actual terrain, wind patterns, water flow patterns, and calculate were radioactive material will likely spread. Otherwise you are just wasting time and money.
Magnet
sengoky38, they're seriously considering restarting the nuclear power plants. Evidently they haven't learned a thing at all.
Fadamor
The way I'm reading this, these are the absolute minimums set by the government for automatic evacuation "triggers", but the individual prefectures can set wider zones and lower trigger levels if they wish. Certainly once weather data is examined the evacuation boundaries will get customized beyond the 5km and 30km radius circles if needed. Once again, these are just the automatic evacuations that go into effect before other data is taken into account.
warnerbro
"Changes to the guidelines were minor"
Things went so well the last time, why make major changes?! How about actually announcing a problem when it happens, even after the problem explodes live on TV, instead of denying it until it melts through the bl##dy containment? Might we put that in the guidelines.
basroil
Even I have to say this is ridiculous, the standard threshold for evacuation is about a tenth of that rate long term, and perhaps around half as much for immediate issues relating to radio-iodine.
That said, nobody is going to die from a few days at the higher of the two limits, though simply evacuating for a few weeks is generally advisable until radio-iodine is in check.