Eight months since disaster struck Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, the cleanup of areas contaminated by radioactive substances and the safe storage of contaminated soil and waste are pressing issues.
The central government on Oct. 29 announced a plan to construct within three years an intermediate storage facility to bury contaminated soil and other waste in Fukushima Prefecture.
The concrete facility will cover 3 to 5 square kilometers and have a capacity of 15 million to 28 million cubic meters. The central government will have to negotiate with local governments in Fukushima Prefecture to decide on a site for the facility in 2012 and start building it in the summer of 2014. The facility will start accepting contaminated soil and other waste around January 2015.