Responses Immediately after the Accident

As the emergency core cooling system stopped at Unit 1 and Unit 2 of TEPCO's Fukushima Daiichi NPS, the government issued, based on the Act on Special Measures Concerning Nuclear Emergency, a Declaration of a Nuclear Emergency Situation and established the Nuclear Emergency Response Headquarters at 19:03 p.m. on March 11, 2011.

At 21:23 p.m. on the same day, based on the same Act, the government issued an evacuation order to residents within a 3-km radius of the NPS and ordered those within a 10-km radius to shelter indoors.

Thereafter, the government expanded the coverage of the evacuation order, which was targeted to residents within a 3-km radius of the NPS, to cover those within a 10-km radius. As a result, a total of 51,207 residents in four towns within a 10-km radius were placed under the evacuation order.

As a hydrogen explosion occurred within the reactor building at Unit 1 at 15:36 p.m. on March 12, the coverage of the evacuation order was further expanded from residents within a 10-km radius to those within a 20-km radius of the NPS.

• Included in this reference material on March 31, 2013