The Nuclear Regulation Authority has established new guidelines to better protect people in the event of severe accidents at nuclear power plants, including expanding emergency zones where special preparations are required from the current radius of 8 to 10 km around each nuclear plant to a radius of 30 km.
The NRA also made public earlier maps showing the potential spread of radioactive fallout from each nuclear power plant in the event of accidents on par with the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 plant. The fact that the maps and the guidelines came out only after the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe points to the government and the power industry's naive belief that severe accidents will not happen at nuclear power plants, which in turn explains the lack of concrete measures to protect citizens in the event of a nuclear disaster.
Although the NRA's action is a first step in the right direction and must be utilized to make preparations to cope with severe nuclear accidents, it is not free from problems.