TEPCO to compensate people affected by N-crisis in Fukushima

TOKYO/FUKUSHIMA: Japanese government today ordered the embattled operator of radiation-leaking Fukushima nuclear plant to urgently pay USD 12,000 in provisional compensation to each of 50,000 affected households near the facility, amid frantic efforts to tackle the atomic crisis.

The operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), is to make "an urgent and speedy payment" in damages for the losses suffered by people who were asked to evacuate or stay indoors due to the nuclear crisis, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said.

He said that each of the 50,000 affected households within a 30-km radius of the stricken plant will receive one million yen (USD 12,000) in provisional payment.

TEPCO President Masataka Shimizu, facing criticism over his inability to outline a timeframe for containing Japan's worst atomic crisis in decades, said the firm would not hold back anything in streamlining to finance the payments, possibly through downsizing the workforce and overseas operations.

His remarks came after a government taskforce, which studied how to compensate people affected by the nuclear disaster, asked the utility to swiftly provide short-term living expenses to residents who have been ordered to evacuate or stay indoors.

Meanwhile, a small amount of plutonium believed to have been released as a result of the ongoing disaster was detected in soil samples taken at the nuclear complex in Fukushima.

It is the third time that traces of plutonium have been found in soil samples taken at the plant. The latest samples were taken on March 31 and April 4, Kyodo news agency reported.

The levels of plutonium in the samples were about the same observed in Japan following previous nuclear tests elsewhere, according to TEPCO.

TEPCO workers continued their efforts to bring the reactors under control and stop radioactive leaks from the seaside six-unit plant, injecting more nitrogen gas into the No.1 reactor and installing additional steel sheets near a seawater intake for the No. 2 reactor.

TEPCO said it will throw sandbags containing zeolite, a mineral that absorbs radioactive material, into the sea near the plant to reduce the levels of contamination in seawater.

Nuclear safety agency spokesman Hidehiko Nishiyama said they were also considering injecting nitrogen into the other two troubled reactors soon.

According to an analysis by the Atomic Energy Society of Japan, nuclear fuel inside the crippled reactors at the Fukushima plant has partially melted and settled at the bottom of pressure vessels in the shape of grains.