Japan nuclear refugees face dilemma over returning home

More than four years since Satoru Yamauchi abandoned his noodle restaurant to escape radiation spreading from the tsunami-wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant, the Japanese government is almost ready to declare it safe to go home.  But, like many of the displaced, he's not sure if he wants to.

"I want my old life back, but I don't think it's possible here," he said on a recent visit to the dusty "soba" buckwheat noodle restaurant in Nahara that he ran for more than two decades.

The father-of-four has lived in Tokyo since evacuating his home to escape toxic pollution spewing from crippled reactors hit by a gigantic tsunami in March 2011.

Meltdowns in three of the reactors -- 20 kilometres (12 miles) away -- blanketed vast tracts of land with isotopes of iodine and cesium, products of nuclear reactions that are hazardous to health if ingested, inhaled or absorbed.

Of the municipalities immediately surrounding the nuclear plant, which were totally evacuated, Naraha will be the first to which people will be allowed to return.

After years of decontamination work, where teams remove topsoil, wash exposed road surfaces and wipe down buildings, the government will in September lift the evacuation order and declare it a safe place to live.

Other towns and villages will follow in coming months and years, with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government aiming to lift many evacuation orders by March 2017.

A year after that, the monthly 100,000 yen ($800) in "psychological compensation" that plant operator Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) has been ordered to pay to evacuees, will cease.