The number of workers who suffered cancer-inducing radiation doses is not 178, but 1,978, Asahi Shimbun reported on Friday. That's eleven times more than admitted by Tepco, the owner of the plant last December.
After much international pressure, Tepco had collected data from 522 workers last December and announced that 178 of them had suffered radiation as high as 11,800 millisieverts . The safe limit is 100 millisieverts. This finding was submitted to the World Health Organization and revealed last December.
But several expert agencies including the UN Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation and Japan's health ministry pressured Tepco to look more carefully . After revaluation, Tepco found that actually 1,978 workers had suffered radiation over the safe level.
Since most of the exposure must have occurred in the first few days of the disaster, the workers have been without treatment for 28 months now. The Japanese mass circulation daily quoted affected workers as saying that they had been given no information or warning by Tepco.
Tepco reacted to Asahi Shibun's revelation by announcing , "We will provide and pay for annual, ultrasound thyroid gland tests to all workers with thyroid gland doses in excess of 100 millisieverts over their lifetimes," the paper said.
A total of 19,592 workers have worked at the stricken plant since the disaster, of which 16302 worked under contractors and sub-contractors . Very shaky records of radiation testing and results have been maintained.
The Fukushima plant continues to leak radiation in the sea and the groundwater and Tepco, which is now partially state controlled after a bailout appears to have no clue as to what is happening.
On July 8, levels of radioactive cesium in groundwater soared 90 times what they were a few days earlier and 200 times the safety limit. Earlier, in June, Tepco had admitted that radioactive strontium levels in groundwater had increased 100 times between December and May.
Tepco also admitted that radioactive tritium levels in sea water had risen to 2300 becquerels per liter ? the highest ever.
Regular reports of sea fish containing very high radioactivity have kept appearing in Japanese press indicating that somewhere radioactive water is leaking into the sea. In early July, a sea bass containing 1037 becquerels per kilogram was caught near Hitachi , about a 100 kilometers south of Fukushima.
In March this year a greenling with 740,000 becquerels per kilogram of radioactivity was caught near the plant.
Tepco is cooling the simmering spent fuel pools and damaged reactors containing highly reactive fissile material with 400 metric tons of water every day. This water gets contaminated and is being stored in huge tanks in the plant.
There have been reports of leakage from these tanks too. Tepco is reported to be trying to convince the government to allow it to dump the radioactive water in the Pacific Ocean.
"Who could trust such a company?" said Hirohiko Izumida , governor of Niigata Prefecture, according to Asahi Shimbun, after TEPCO's board decided on July 2 to restart two reactors at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa power plant in Niigata.
Jarvis Jones minnesota vikings Eric Reid Kyle Long UFC 159 aaron rodgers Lane Johnson
কোন মন্তব্য নেই:
একটি মন্তব্য পোস্ট করুন