Work Begins To Build Interim Nuclear Soil Storage In Fukushima

FUKUSHIMA, JAPAN - FEB. 3: Workers on Tuesday launched the construction of interim facilities near the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant to store contaminated soil and other waste collected during radiation cleanup activities within Fukushima Prefecture. The storage facilities on around 16 square kilometers of land in the seaside towns of Okuma and Futaba are expected to be capable of storing 30 million tons of soil and other radioactive waste, such as burned ash. They are not for storing tainted waste generated within the crippled plant. On Tuesday morning, work began to prepare outside storage yards on some 2 hectares of land. But it remains unclear when the government will be able to start setting up other key storage buildings, an environment ministry official said. The waste to be temporarily kept at the sites will be permanently disposed of outside the prefecture within 30 years, as requested by the prefectural government in accepting the facilities. But the issue of finding permanent disposal sites remains unresolved.