About one-fourth of the people from eight municipalities around the Fukushima No. 1 power plant have no intention of returning to live in the area, according to a recent survey by Fukushima University.
According to preliminary results of the survey, conducted in September on about 13,460 households from towns and villages in the Futaba district, the most common reason for not wanting to go back — cited by 83 percent of the respondents, who were allowed to give multiple reasons — was the difficulty of decontaminating the area.
The second-most common response was lack of trust in the central government's declarations of safety. No. 3, chosen by 63%, was that they can't expect the nuclear crisis to be resolved.
Taken together, the three top reasons indicate serious doubts about the government's ability to manage the disaster.
Among the households that haven't ruled out the possibility of returning, half said they are prepared to wait only up to two years to go back.
Responses were received from questionnaires sent to about 28,000 households of the eight municipalities, including the towns of Futaba and Okuma, which host the crisis-ridden plant. Their homes are in the government-designated no-entry zone.