For many Fukushima evacuees, the truth is they won't be going home

The silver lining is that their great grandchildren won't die in the next tsunami. Building a town right on the shores of eastern Japan is not smart. And building nuke plants there is even dumber.

The decontamination plans were never realistic. From the beginning it made far more sense to permanently move the people out and help them set up new lives. This was especially cruel to do to the old people who simply did not have the time to wait. Many of the problems in both physical and emotional health have been made far worse by keeping them in shelters and in-between. The irony is it would have cost far less and done far more actual good.

They should have been told from the beginning that it was unlikely they would ever be able to move back in their life time. I don't understand how they haven't been able to come to that conclusion on their own yet. Quit relying on all of the fake promises and think for yourselves!

And, the second truth is, they will never be fully compensated.

The radiation will eventually disappear, but only after a long time. In the meantime the government is spending a fortune just moving it around.

Perhaps, the unihabitable land could be used wind and power generation to obtain an income for the poor displaced people.

It is cruel for the government to keep their hopes alive when there is no hope.

These folks have been let down by their own people.

Uncertainty avoidance and fear of telling (and facing up to) the ugly truth have squandered gazillions.

They are aware of the truth by now. It is about time for them to take action by themselves for their own future.

Nearly three years on and the government still can't admit the obvious. Poor people.

Oh, take action for themselves. Many of them are old and poor and have no options. Meanwhile wind power is a waste of subsidies. It produces no significant net energy. Its a liberal fantasy from California to Fukushima. Let that nonsense go before the whole world is covered with those hideous windmills.

There has to be a core area which will not be available for habitation in the former residents' lifetime. Define that area and help the former residents rebuild their lives nearby.

Obviously it takes a very long time for land contaminated with radiation to heal properly, so trying to be too optimistic is naturally doomed to failure. If a country wants nuclear power, then they have to face up to reality when disasters occur. There is no other choice, so get over it and face the consequences.

300 years or 10 half-lives is the accepted time period after which you can return home. But neither J-gov nor TEPCO wanted to inform people that, the potential cost of relocation, rebuilding and compensation put them off. The promise of effective decontamination was just a stop gap measure.

Now finally, people are working it out for themselves...

This has always been about saving the nuclear industry. The government didn't want to admit they couldn't clean up this poison because it would mean all areas around plants across the nation are dead zones (to human life) in the case of more human error or a natural disaster. Once the true risks are calculated, nuclear is no longer a cheap energy source. They also wanted to keep liability costs down for TEPCO, and of course decontamination work provides make-work project and feeds taxpayers' money to corporations running these.

If you put the Japanese Government to the lie detector test irrespective of who is Prime Minister, it will always fail. That is a permanent characteristic of the Japanese people. They refuse to face facts much as they try their best to tolerate the inconveniences and despair. The same happened when Japan was negotiating for peace with the Americans while preparing to bomb Pearl Harbour. The whole country and its people are dying and yet government policies continue as if Japan were in its hey days. Happy dreaming!

Some of the radiation types can last for 100,000 years and even more. Cesium is rather short lived but could last for 40 to 100 years. Don't forget,,,its not only Cesium that is radioactive....Also, look at Chernobyl after 40 years and still evacuated.

In August, the number of people in Fukushima who have died since the accident from illnesses related to prolonged evacuation rose to 1,539, nearing the prefecture’s tsunami death toll of 1,599.

What? Prolonged evacuation causes fatal illnesses to the tune of over 1500 out of 53,333 (1/3 of 160,000)? I'd be REAL interested in the quality of the study that came up with THIS bit of news. 3% of the affected population dying counts as a fatal epidemic. And that 53,333 is assuming that all 160,000 mentioned in the article only came from Fukushima prefecture.

What I know of Japan b4 and now...disappointment!! I didn't know there is so much suffering and ignorance....and dishonesty

The government should declare a large zone around the plant a nature preserve and pay for the settlement of people elsewhere. It is not like Japans population is currently growing... there are villages all over this country which are suffering from depopulation and appreciate any newcomers. I really don´t see the need to re-settle people close to the plant and pay huge amounts for "decontamination" which only works to a limited degree anyway. And a nature preserve would not be useless anyway, it would be fine for visits and as a green lung.