Damages ordered for Japan victims

The Japanese government on Friday intervened on behalf of victims of the nuclear radiation crisis and ordered the operator of the Fukushima Daiichi plant to pay them “provisional compensation” towards a final settlement of damages.

Shortly after the multi-reactor plant was ravaged by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, the government advised an immediate evacuation of the residents of a 20-km. stretch around the atomic power station. However, as the nuclear radiation crisis deepened, the government ordered the voluntary evacuation of people residing in contiguous areas within a radius of another 10 km. around the plant.

The preliminary compensation was decided upon, amid prolonged efforts to “stabilise” the Daiichi plant. However, a roadmap for the total resolution of the nuclear radiation crisis was not yet drawn up by the experts, said Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano at a press conference in Tokyo on Friday. He also indicated that the future of this evacuation zone might eventually be decided within the larger framework redesigning all the quake-and-tsunami-hit areas.

Not immediately clear was the exact number of people eligible for provisional compensation from the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), operator of the Daiichi plant. There was still no final accounting of missing persons in the evacuation zone, though the number of people already in evacuation centres would be a rough guide. The number of voluntary evacuees and those who opted for in-door stay within the outer 10-km. ring around the plant would also have to be counted. No radiation-related fatalities have been reported by the authorities.

Tepco president Masataka Shimizu said in Tokyo that the payments, to be disbursed now under the law on nuclear-emergency preparedness, could be treated as “funds for the immediate needs” of the evacuees. “We hope to be of some help” to them, he said. These initial payments would be of the order of $12,000 for each family and $9,000 for each single-person household.

As Tepco continued its efforts to bring about “stability” at the plant, no new alarm was sounded following the mark-up of the Daiichi crisis on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES). There was speculation in the East Asian circles that the mark-up was the result of interactions between the IAEA and the Japanese authorities.