Japanese Authorities Encourage Voluntary Evacuation

Japanese police began encouraging people to evacuate a larger part of territory around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant on Friday since new signs emerged that parts of the crippled facility are so damaged and contaminated that it will be hard to bring the plant under control soon. 

“The state of the plant is still quite precarious,” Prime Minister Naoto Kan said at a news conference Friday night two weeks after the magnitude 9.0 earthquake and the devastating tsunami that followed it. “We’re working hard to make sure it doesn’t get worse. We have to ensure there’s no further deterioration,” he added.

Authorities said that they would now assist people who want to leave the area from 12 to 19 miles outside the plant and that they were now encouraging “voluntary evacuation” from the area. Those people had been advised March 15 to remain indoors, while those within a 12-mile radius of the plant had been ordered to evacuate.

Source: The New York Times