Sakuraa Nihongo Resource Centre

It was to be the first such organised return trip since the government declared a 20-kilometre (12-mile) exclusion zone around the plant after the March 11 quake-tsunami, and sealed it off as a legal no-go zone on April 21.

The plant, where reactor cooling systems were knocked out by the giant wave, has been hit by explosions and leaked radiation into the air, ground and sea in the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl 25 years ago.

In all, more than 85,000 people have been moved to shelters from areas around the plant, including from a wider 30-kilometre zone, where people were first told to stay indoors and later urged to leave.

On the first organised trip back, about 95 people from Kawauchi-mura, a village southwest of the plant, were to wear protective clothing and carry radiation dosimeters and walkie-talkies to visit their houses for two hours.

“I didn’t think I would be feeling this tense before I return to my house,” local resident Masao Yanai told TV Asahi at a public gym just outside the off-limits area that served as their gathering place.

“Authorities say the level of radioactive contamination should not harm human health. But, yes, the contamination is a bit worrying.”

Yanai hoped to make the best of the two-hour trip, during which each villager was allowed to fill a 70-by-70-centimetre (27.5 by 27.5-inch) plastic bag with personal items, such as family photos, money and bank records.

“I don’t remember where I put some of my things. It’s difficult to know how well things will go,” he added.

The residents held a practice session last week and were to receive another lecture at the gym, before being bussed into the area. They were banned from taking out pets, livestock, water or food.

During their visit, they must also avoid any action that might compromise their protective clothing, including using the bathroom.

Once their visit is over in the early afternoon, they will be bussed back to the public gym for health checkups and radiation screenings, both of themselves and any items they are bringing out.

Before the home visit started, some elderly men said they wished to feed their pets, and bring family photos and medical equipment.

Another man said he wished to check on the cows at his farm.

The move came after plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co opened the doors linking the reactor building to its adjacent turbine building Sunday evening, and confirmed that the resultant release of radioactive materials into the air had not raised radiation levels on the premises, according to the firm.

Nine workers went into the reactor building around 4:20 a.m. and measured radiation and other conditions inside for about 30 minutes, TEPCO said, without immediately announcing the radiation readings.

If the radiation level is confirmed to be safe for workers to operate inside, they will start building a new cooling system for the reactor—the most severely damaged of the six at the plant—which lost cooling functions in the March 11 quake and tsunami.

Restoration work at the reactor has been hampered by a hydrogen explosion on March 12 and high radiation levels since.

In the envisaged next step, workers will install and adjust equipment including a heat exchanger and instruments to measure the water levels in the reactor’s pressure vessel containing nuclear fuel and the containment vessel shrouding it, the company said.

No rises in the radiation level have been seen at nine observation points in the plant located some 220 kilometers northeast of Tokyo since the double-entry doors were opened shortly past 8 p.m. Sunday, TEPCO said.

The government’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency and the Environment Ministry began measuring the same day radiation levels in debris left by the quake-tsunami disaster in Fukushima Prefecture to consider ways to dispose of it and address the fears of local people.

The debris has been stored at makeshift scrap yards in coastal and central areas of the prefecture due to fears of contamination with radioactive materials.