The cleanup of the nuclear power plant in Fukushima would be delayed. This was according to officials of the Environment Ministry. The cleanup was scheduled to be completed in March next year but the Shigeyoshi Sato, the officer in charge of the Ministry's decontamination efforts gave vague completion times. Sato said, "We will have to extend the cleanup process, by one year, two years or three years, we haven't exactly decided yet."
Three reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant were destroyed in March 2011 after the earthquake and tsunami that hit the country.
Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co or Tepco was given the mandate of cleaning up the waste. As the company's debt rose because of cleanup process, the government had even bailed out the company. The Japanese government also stepped in to provide USD 500 million to create countermeasures when Tepco encountered problems. The decommissioning of the nuclear plant would cost a total of JPY 10 trillion or USD 100 billion and would take 40 years to complete.
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