By Jonathan Soble in Tokyo The Financial Times March 24 2011
Three technicians working at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station were exposed to potentially dangerous radiation on Thursday, bringing the number injured to 17.
The almost 300 members of the workforce at the nuclear facility are fast becoming national heroes for their efforts to make safe the facility, which is in an evacuation zone.
The three were laying a cable in a turbine building attached to No 3 reactor, Tepco said. Radiation meters showed they had absorbed airborne doses of more than 170 millisieverts, above the 100 mSv threshold at which researchers say cancer risk increases.
The 100 mSv level is normally the legal dose limit for emergency workers at nuclear facilities, but Japan has raised its limit to 250 mSv to allow work at the plant to continue.
Restoring the internal cooling systems remains the best hope for stabilising the plant and moving beyond the ad hoc emergency measures of helicopter water drops and spraying with water cannons.
Technicians have fitted new external power lines to all the reactor units at the plant, but the equipment inside has been damaged by the quake, explosions and seawater that engulfed the facility and there is no guarantee it will still work.
Beyond the plant itself, contamination from the accident has now spread beyond the immediate Fukushima area, about 240km north-west of Tokyo.
Australia joined the US and Hong Kong on Thursday in restricting food and milk imports from the quake-affected zone, while Canada became the latest of many nations to tighten screening after the worst nuclear crisis since the 1986 Chernobyl blast in what is now Ukraine.
Three technicians working at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station were exposed to potentially dangerous radiation on Thursday, bringing the number injured to 17.
The almost 300 members of the workforce at the nuclear facility are fast becoming national heroes for their efforts to make safe the facility, which is in an evacuation zone.
The three were laying a cable in a turbine building attached to No 3 reactor, Tepco said. Radiation meters showed they had absorbed airborne doses of more than 170 millisieverts, above the 100 mSv threshold at which researchers say cancer risk increases.
The 100 mSv level is normally the legal dose limit for emergency workers at nuclear facilities, but Japan has raised its limit to 250 mSv to allow work at the plant to continue.
Restoring the internal cooling systems remains the best hope for stabilising the plant and moving beyond the ad hoc emergency measures of helicopter water drops and spraying with water cannons.
Technicians have fitted new external power lines to all the reactor units at the plant, but the equipment inside has been damaged by the quake, explosions and seawater that engulfed the facility and there is no guarantee it will still work.
Beyond the plant itself, contamination from the accident has now spread beyond the immediate Fukushima area, about 240km north-west of Tokyo.
Australia joined the US and Hong Kong on Thursday in restricting food and milk imports from the quake-affected zone, while Canada became the latest of many nations to tighten screening after the worst nuclear crisis since the 1986 Chernobyl blast in what is now Ukraine.
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