Panel proposes widening nuclear evacuation perimeter to 30 km (18 miles)

From Kyodo News:

The secretariat of the Nuclear Safety Commission of Japan proposed on Thursday expanding the maximum evacuation perimeter around a nuclear power plant to a 30-kilometer radius from the current 10 km in the event of a future nuclear accident.

The secretariat also proposed newly designating a 5-km radius around a nuclear plant as a zone from which people should immediately be evacuated following a plant accident.

The proposal was shown to the commission's working group reexamining evacuation rules for nuclear accidents in the wake of the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima Prefecture triggered by the massive earthquake and tsunami in March.

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