Some of the so called 'Fukushima Fifty' have been exposed to 10,000 times the normal amount of radiation as they battle to cool and restore power to the damaged nuclear plant, according to the Japan nuclear and industrial safety agency.
While the official death toll of the earthquake and resulting tsunami, which struck a fortnight ago, reached 10,000, many of the workers at Fukushima Dai-ichi, who have also been dubbed the Atomic Samurai, were taken to hospital after coming in to contact with contaminated water.
Three men were scorched when knee-deep water sloshed down their boots and the contamination is believed to have come from one of the plant's six reactors - reactor 3 - which is thought to have been cracked.
The Japan nuclear and industrial safety agency official, Hidehiko Nishiyama, said there is a possibility of 'some sort of leakage' from the reactor, and he speculated that the unit's containment vessel could have been cracked.
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| Workers try to connect transmission lines to restore electric power supply to Unit 3 and Unit 4 at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Okumamach |
He implied that the damage may have occurred in the reactor's core, but that it was limited, and said: 'Something at the reactor may have been damaged. Our data suggest the reactor retains certain containment functions.'
Other officials said the damage at Fukushima, located 140 miles northeast of Tokyo, could instead have happened in other equipment, including piping or the spent fuel pool.
Japan's chief cabinet secretary Yukio Edano has said a rigorous inquiry is under way to establish the cause of a leak at the plant.
Either way, with the levels of radiation so extremely high, it calls in to question whether the safety measures in place are adequate, where 536 people are currently stationed, according to Tokyo Electric Power Co. -- the plant's official owners -- including government authorities and firemen.
Workers are undertaking various measures to prevent the further release of radioactive substances into the air and beyond and 17 people already have been exposed to 100 or more millisieverts of radiation since the plant's crisis began two weeks ago after the size 9.0 magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami.
To highlight the extreme levels of radiation, a person in an industrialised country is naturally exposed to 3 millisieverts of radiation a year - 3 per cent of the amount the workers are currently being exposed to.
In a televised address, Prime Minister Kan said this afternoon: 'The current situation is still very unpredictable.
'We're working to stop the situation from worsening. We need to continue to be extremely vigilant.'
He thanked the workers, firemen and Self-Defence Forces for 'risking their lives' to try to cool the reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant.
The Japanese government has said that it will offer transportation and other assistance to those in a buffer zone around the plant, admitting that those people have been put in a 'difficult' situation.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Edano said authorities are encouraging people living in the exclusion zone, between 20 and 30 kilometres (12.5 and 19 miles), from the plant to leave the area voluntarily because of the challenges they 'have faced in their daily lives'.
© Daily Mail, London |
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