Residents of nearby Wolseong nuclear power plant in Gyeongju City demanded on Nov. 19 that the Presidential office come up with measures to prevent them from unwanted radiation exposure so that they can live safely.
Residents of Naari in Yangnam-myeon, Gyeongju City, a village near Wolseong nuclear power plant, have been staging a sit-in in front of the Wolseong nuclear power plant PR hall for more than four years since August 2014.
"Let us live where we want to be. We don't want to live in an unusually good place. If we wake up in the morning and we don't want to see the dome of the nuclear power plant. It's a place where we can relax. We hope we don't get tritium out of our urine," the residents said.
“Eighteen months have passed since Moon Jae-in led the new government. However, our residents' hope is fading away. After the Fukushima accident, we felt that we could no longer live near nuclear power plants when we saw the fact that a radioactive substance was detected in our residents' urine and a joint thyroid cancer lawsuit has been underway," they said.
"We offered out our hometown houses and rice fields for sale with the intention of moving out, but no one looked back. Our village was branded as a place where no one could live anymore," they added.
The National Assembly has proposed a bill on the relocation of residents near nuclear power plants, but the government is reportedly strongly opposed because it would cost 8 trillion won.
Residents in Naari will hold a one-man relay rally in front of the Presidential office for a week from Nov. 19 to 23.
