Children are far more sensitive to radiation-caused diseases than adults because their bodies are developing, but their bodies can bounce back and heal from the damage of radiation. Sugenoya said that in areas of Belarus that are close to Chernobyl, children are periodically sent away from radiated areas.
Matsumoto, in Nagano prefecture, has about 240,000 people, and has room in its schools because of the declining population common in rural areas. Sugenoya's plan, called the Matsumoto Project, will be open to Fukushima students from third grade to junior high school.
Matsumoto officials have conducted meetings in Fukushima to explain the plan, and some parents have expressed interest, but it is unclear how many of them will send their children away to study.
Fukushima residents most worried about radiation are already gone. Some 150,000 people have left areas in Fukushima most ravaged by the tsunami, a third of them to other prefectures.
About 200 of them are in Matsumoto, including Hiroshi Ueki, his wife and their children, 6 and 4.
“They ask me, ‘Can I now touch the flowers?”' Ueki said of his children. “In Fukushima, they had to wear masks, and they became afraid. They were getting scolded a lot. ‘Don't touch any dirt.' ‘Don't touch this.' ‘Don't touch that.”'
Some who remain in areas surrounding the wrecked nuclear plant are torn over whether to stay.
Yuri Hasegawa, a 45-year-old Fukushima mother, is so worried she has bought a Geiger counter and has a stockpile of masks. She cooks with only food that has been tested for radiation.
She has been sending her two children, 9 and 13, to summer and winter camps in the northernmost island of Hokkaido, the southernmost island of Okinawa, and the southwestern city of Hiroshima. She is thinking about taking part in the Matsumoto Project. She said she faces opposition from her husband and other relatives, who scoff at her concerns as extreme.
