ID :
187582
Thu, 06/09/2011 - 18:47
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https://oananews.org//node/187582
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Crisis-hit Fukushima city mayor seeks gov't body near no-entry zone
TOKYO, June 9 Kyodo - The mayor of Minamisoma in Fukushima Prefecture, which has been greatly affected by the ongoing nuclear crisis, called on the central government Thursday to set up an office near a no-entry zone to correctly grasp the situation and implement appropriate countermeasures.
Mayor Katsunobu Sakurai of the coastal city, which partly falls within the exclusion zone near the crippled Fukushima Daiichi plant, said he believes Japan cannot send a strong message to the world on the nuclear emergency because a central government organization has not been established in the crisis-hit area.
Sakurai, who was named by TIME magazine as one of this year's 100 most influential people in the world after posting a direct appeal for aid on the YouTube video-sharing website after the March 11 quake and tsunami, criticized Prime Minister Naoto Kan for his failure to issue ''a message to calm and reassure'' disaster victims.
''The premier should have said to all the Japanese politicians, bureaucrats and general public that he will take full responsibility and deal with the crisis,'' the mayor said at a luncheon meeting of the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan.
Sakurai said he believes Kan's lack of communication skills has led to the submission of a no-confidence motion against him last week, a development which ''totally ridiculed'' disaster victims. The premier survived the motion by promising to leave office in the near future.
The mayor also said some Minamisoma residents who live in areas with high levels of radiation exposure outside the current no-entry zone have voiced concerns and that he asked the central government earlier in the day to consider whether to evacuate them.
The government is now considering expanding the scope of its evacuation order to include people from so-called ''hot spots,'' where radiation exposure would exceed the yardstick of 20 millisieverts during the course of a year.
In the city with a population of some 70,000, about 700 were killed or remain missing due to the March calamities. About 14,000 Minamisoma residents have fled from their houses in areas within a 20-kilometer radius of the crippled Fukushima plant, according to Sakurai.
Mayor Katsunobu Sakurai of the coastal city, which partly falls within the exclusion zone near the crippled Fukushima Daiichi plant, said he believes Japan cannot send a strong message to the world on the nuclear emergency because a central government organization has not been established in the crisis-hit area.
Sakurai, who was named by TIME magazine as one of this year's 100 most influential people in the world after posting a direct appeal for aid on the YouTube video-sharing website after the March 11 quake and tsunami, criticized Prime Minister Naoto Kan for his failure to issue ''a message to calm and reassure'' disaster victims.
''The premier should have said to all the Japanese politicians, bureaucrats and general public that he will take full responsibility and deal with the crisis,'' the mayor said at a luncheon meeting of the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan.
Sakurai said he believes Kan's lack of communication skills has led to the submission of a no-confidence motion against him last week, a development which ''totally ridiculed'' disaster victims. The premier survived the motion by promising to leave office in the near future.
The mayor also said some Minamisoma residents who live in areas with high levels of radiation exposure outside the current no-entry zone have voiced concerns and that he asked the central government earlier in the day to consider whether to evacuate them.
The government is now considering expanding the scope of its evacuation order to include people from so-called ''hot spots,'' where radiation exposure would exceed the yardstick of 20 millisieverts during the course of a year.
In the city with a population of some 70,000, about 700 were killed or remain missing due to the March calamities. About 14,000 Minamisoma residents have fled from their houses in areas within a 20-kilometer radius of the crippled Fukushima plant, according to Sakurai.
