via The Japan News / March 13, 2015
The transfer of soil, contaminated four years ago with radioactive materials from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, to an interim storage facility began in Okuma, Fukushima Prefecture, on Friday.
The Environment Ministry plans to move the contaminated soil — currently being kept at more than 75,000 locations in the prefecture’s 43 villages, towns and cities — to the facility gradually. Work to remove the soil, seen as an impediment to reconstruction efforts, has finally been launched.
The construction of the facility is planned in a coastal area of about 1,600 hectares that straddles the line between the towns of Okuma and Futaba. The facility, which is designed to prevent leaks of radioactive substances, is capable of storing up to 22 million cubic meters of soil and other radioactive waste for a maximum of 30 years.