UPDATE2: Gov't eyes nuke compensation payment process from around fall+

TOKYO, May 18 Kyodo -
(EDS: ADDING MORE INFO)
The government said Tuesday that it plans to start paying compensation to people affected by the ongoing nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant by around the fall, as it unveiled its own time schedule for supporting the victims of the ongoing disaster that may continue until early next year.
In an updated version of Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s road map toward settling the crisis, meanwhile, the utility said that it will stick to its initial plan to stabilize the crippled reactors sometimes between October and January, although it changed some parts of its plan amid concerns that the Nos. 1 to 3 reactors may all have suffered meltdowns.
The government clarified the state's responsibility in supporting the people affected by the country's worst nuclear accident, calling them ''victims of the state's policy'' of promoting nuclear power, apparently to stave off criticism that the government is leaving the disaster response to the plant operator.
''I have met many people who were tired both mentally and physically because of their lives as evacuees for over two months...The government will take responsibility and properly deal with the matter to the very end,'' Prime Minister Naoto Kan told a government meeting on the nuclear disaster.
But it is uncertain how smoothly the utility known as TEPCO can move ahead with its work to restore the radiation-leaking plant, which is closely connected to when evacuees are able to return to their homes.
TEPCO released the updated version of its road map on how to restore the plant's crippled reactors, which lost key cooling functions in the wake of the March 11 quake and tsunami, one month after the release of the initial road map on April 17.
Under the initial road map, TEPCO said it aimed to bring in about six to nine months the damaged Nos. 1 to 3 reactors to a stable condition known as a ''cold shutdown,'' in which water temperatures inside the reactors are stably brought below 100 C.
The process toward ending the nuclear crisis so far ''has been going as we initially expected,'' Sakae Muto, vice president of TEPCO, said at a press conference, adding the firm is expected to bring the crippled reactors to a stable cooling condition in mid-July as a first step.
As for the No. 1 reactor, workers were expected to fill the reactor's primary container with water to a level covering the 4-meter-long fuel rods inside the pressure vessel, and create a system that would enable the coolant water to circulate around the reactor to stably keep the fuel cool.
But TEPCO effectively gave up the plan to flood the container with water in its updated road map, after recent findings suggested that a large part of the fuel had melted and that the container appears to be leaking massive amounts of water injected into the reactor as an emergency post-disaster measure to keep the fuel cool.
While Muto said the nuclear meltdown has not been hampering the company's efforts to cool the No. 1 reactor, TEPCO will still seek to set up a coolant circulation system by using the water that is leaking from the container and is filling up the reactor building and the adjacent reactor turbine building.
Similar methods are expected to be taken for cooling the Nos. 2 and 3 reactors, which may also be leaking water from their primary containers, TEPCO said.
The water would be sent to a decontamination facility TEPCO plans to establish in mid-June and would be recycled as coolant water.
The utility also said it will place 30-meter-long walls in the ground around the reactor buildings to prevent groundwater containing radioactive substances from spreading into the sea and elsewhere, as the plant is located on the Pacific coast of Fukushima Prefecture.
It also plans to clean contaminated water that has leaked into the sea from the plant and has been kept enclosed by barriers so as to prevent radioactive substances from further spreading.
The nuclear crisis devastated northeastern Japan and has forced people living within a 20-kilometer radius of the plant and some areas beyond to evacuate, while damaging the agriculture, livestock and fishery industries in the affected areas. The 20-km zone is now set as a legally binding no-entry zone.
Under the schedule, the government plans to finish paying provisional damages to 50,000 affected households by the end of May and start payments to fishermen and farmers hit by the disaster.
Based on an interim compensation guideline to be decided in July, the government plans to start compensation payments by around the fall, according to the work schedule.
The government said that it will take several steps before lifting the no-entry zone warning, such as measuring the radiation level in the area, while conducting a survey on the victims' radiation exposure in response to health concerns.
''We feel that there is a need to keep checking the health of the people in the disaster-hit area over the next 10 years, 20 years, in some cases 30 years,'' a government official said.
The government also said that it will continue to check over the long term the health of all workers who engaged in emergency operations at the Fukushima plant by creating a database on their radiation dose and other information.