Japan:Fukushima workers exposed to high radiation

Laaska News  May 31,2011
The operator of the damaged nuclear power plant in Fukushima has been slow in checking workers at the plant for internal exposure to radiation.

Tokyo Electric Power Company began internal checks-ups on March 22nd, 11 days after the nuclear accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant.

It takes about a week to get the results of a check-up. Workers go to the utility’s Fukushima Daini nuclear plant or its Onahama Coal Center in Iwaki City in Fukushima Prefecture for the screening.

To date, less than 40 percent of about 3,700 workers at the damaged Daiichi plant have received internal check-ups for radiation exposure.

TEPCO says 2 workers may have been exposed to more than 250 milisieverts of radiation, the new limit for emergencies set shortly after the disaster erupted. The 2 had been at the plant since the March 11th earthquake and tsunami that caused the nuclear disaster, but had their first internal check-up in mid-April — more than a month later.

TEPCO says 30 workers have been externally exposed to more than 100 millisieverts of radiation.

Two of them were exposed on March 24th while working with their feet soaked in radioactive water in the basement of the Number 3 reactor’s turbine building. One was found to have been internally exposed to 240.8 millisieverts of radiation and the other to 226.6 millisieverts, the highest levels in the checks so far.

TEPCO uses 4 devices to measure internal radiation exposure. It plans to introduce 5 more devices in July.

NHK.

Laaska News.
www.laaska.wordpress.com