Japan nuclear plant workers likely exposed to radiation far beyond legal limit
May 30 (Xinhua) – Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) and the Japanese government officials said Monday that two of the utility firm’s employees who have been working at the crippled Fukushima No.1 nuclear power plant in northeast Japan may have been exposed to radiation exceeding the legal limit of 250 millisieverts. The two male workers in their 30s and 40s have been working at the radiation-leaking complex since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami triggered the worst nuclear crisis. A spokesperson for TEPCO said that the two men had been exposed to increasing amounts of radiation since March 11, amassing several hundred milllisieverts. To deal with the escalating crisis, the government raised the legal limit of radiation workers could be exposed to in an emergency situation from 100 millisieverts to 250 milliseiverts. However, according to the power company and government officials, the two workers who had their thyroid glands tested on May 23 had absorbed 7,690 and 9,760 becquerels of radioactive iodine-131 — a level 10 times that of other workers tested. The two men had been assigned to work details at the Nos. 3 and 4 reactors, which involved being inside the reactors’ control rooms as well as outside on the complex’s grounds. The embattled utility firm said it plans to test 150 more workers who have been assigned similar work duties. …
Japan nuke plant workers likely exposed to radiation far beyond legal limit via The Oil Drum
The use of remote controlled machinery is believed to have caused an oxygen cylinder to explode near reactor 4 at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear energy facility. The explosion occurred outside of the building that houses reactors at the facility and did not change conditions at the site, the company said.
Workers reported the explosion at 2:30 p.m. Tuesday local time in Japan. TEPCO said workers were using unmanned heavy machinery to remove debris at the site when the machinery damaged the cylinder, causing it to burst. There were no changes in radiation levels within the plant site and no injuries were reported.