A 5.0 earthquake was registered on Japan’s east cost in a prefecture neighboring Fukushima. It comes as a top Japanese politician called for acknowledgement of the fact that some Fukushima evacuees would never be able to return to the area.
Sunday’s tremors were felt as far away as Tokyo, but no casualties or damage reports were released at the time.
The news comes just ahead of one of the most dangerous nuclear cleanup operations ever attempted. Scheduled to start at the beginning of November, it will involve the careful, manual removal of 400 tons of spent nuclear fuel rods from the plant’s Reactor No. 4 – with an atomic yield greater than the Hiroshima bomb. The long and cumbersome operation will not permit even the slightest tremor, or Japan risks a catastrophe greater than Chernobyl.
Meanwhile, a Japanese official from the government’s ruling party disagrees with a plan to allow people back, who escaped the Fukushima disaster on the grounds that habitable areas have not yet been identified by the government.
Continue reading at Earthquake hits close to Fukushima, tremors felt as far as Tokyo
