Nuclear plant's owner must pay families £7,000

Japan's government today ordered the owner of the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant to pay one million yen (£7,330) to every family forced to evacuate by leaking radiation.

About 48,000 households living within 19 miles of the plant would be eligible and more compensation was expected later, the trade ministry said.

Some of those who had to flee travelled to Tokyo Electric Power Company's headquarters in the capital to press their demands for compensation.

Many of them said the money was too little. "I'm not satisfied," said Kazuko Suzuki, a 49-year-old single mother of two teenagers from the town of Futuba, next to the plant. She has lived at a shelter at a school near Tokyo for the last month.

Her family has had to buy clothes, food, toiletries and other basics because they fled on government orders without time to pack. She has lost her job as a welfare worker, and her 18-year-old has been unable to find work because of disaster.

"We've had to spend money on so many extra things and we don't know how long this could go on," she said. Akemi Osumi, 48, a mother of three, also from Futuba, said the money was a "small step" but that it did not fairly compensate larger families. "One million yen doesn't go very far," she said. "If it was dependent on the size of the family I'd understand, but it's not."

Tepco's president, Masataka Shimizu, said the first round of compensation would cost the company 50 billion yen (£366 million) but he added that two trillion yen (£15 billion) was needed to resolve the problems at Fukushima and to restart conventional power stations to make up for power shortages. He said he would consider cutting the salaries of executives and other employees.

The governor of Fukushima, Yuhei Sato, criticised Tepco and the government, demanding faster action.
"This is just a beginning," he said. "The accident has not ended. We will continue to ask the government and Tepco to fully compensate evacuees."

About 60 per cent of 1,036 people polled by the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper said they would support
higher taxes to pay for the recovery.

The earthquake on March 11 triggered a massive tsunami that left 13,538 people dead and another 14,589 missing. More than 150,000 have been made homeless, most of them living in shelters.