About one year ago, Japanese government officials swore to the refugees fleeing the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, that they’d be returning home soon.

Not only did that turn out to be a lie, but one official now says some towns will never be inhabitable.

On April 4, 2012, Japan’s reconstruction minister, Hirano Tatsuo, told the Governor of Fukushima Province, and the Mayor of Futaba Town, that because of the storage of highly radioactive waste coming from Fukushima Daiichi, the areas around that waste can never be lived in.

There are areas of Fukushima Province, being used to store hundreds of tons of contaminated water (left over from trying to keep the disaster reactors cool), that are being irradiated by the deadly levels of radiation in the water.

The Japanese media is pointing out that Hirano’s opinion runs counter to the official statements of the government.  The Japanese government continues to promise the nuclear refugees that they will be able to return to all their homes.

Here’s a thought: It’s been proven that Fukushima Daiichi is worse than Chernobyl, and yet, how many people have been allowed to return to Prypiat, the town next to the Chernobyl nuclear plant, 26 years later?  Zero!

Prypiat had nearly 50,000 people prior to the Chernobyl explosion in 1986.  Now it’s a city full of vacant and ghostly skyscrapers.