japan delaying cleanup of towns near nuclear plant

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http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AS_JAPAN_NUCLEAR?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-10-21-05-58-49

TOKYO (AP) -- Radiation cleanup in some of the most contaminated towns around Fukushima's nuclear power plant is behind schedule, so some residents will have to wait a few more years before returning, Japanese officials said Monday.

Environment Ministry officials said they are revising the cleanup schedule for six of 11 municipalities in an exclusion zone from which residents were evacuated after three reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant went into meltdown following the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami. The original plan called for completing all decontamination by next March.

Nobody has been allowed to live in the zone again yet, though the government has allowed day visits to homes and businesses in some places after initial decontamination, said Shigeyoshi Sato, an Environment Ministry official in charge of decontamination.

"We will have to extend the cleanup process, by one year, two years or three years, we haven't exactly decided yet," he said.