TOKYO - Japan's Fukushima prefectural government will stop providing temporary housing for evacuees of the two towns hosting the crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant at the end of March 2026, local media reported.

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The move came as living conditions are expected to improve for residents of Futaba Town and Okuma Town, who fled their homes following the nuclear disaster in 2011, Kyodo News reported.

As of April 1, 966 people were living in 593 temporary accommodations, which comprise prefabricated homes in Koriyama in central Fukushima and rented out private properties across 26 prefectures in the country, the report said.

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The prefecture has already terminated such housing programs for evacuees of other municipalities in the prefecture.

Hit by a magnitude-9.0 earthquake and an ensuing tsunami on March 11, 2011, the Fukushima plant suffered core meltdowns that released radiation, resulting in a level-7 nuclear accident, the highest on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale.