Four workers at the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in northeastern Japan were hit by water containing radioactive substances and two of them were hospitalized as a precaution, an official said Friday.
Five workers were cleaning the pipes of the filtration system used to treat the plant’s water when a pipe accidentally came loose, soaking two of the workers, said a spokesperson for Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), the plant’s operator.
A doctor considered the likelihood of these workers suffering burns from radiation exposure to be low, Tepco said.
“We have been informed that the condition of the two hospitalized workers is stable,” the spokesperson said, adding that “they will remain in the hospital for approximately two weeks for follow-up examinations.”
Two other workers may have been contaminated with radioactivity while cleaning up the damage, the spokesman added.
Tepco is studying the circumstances of the accident and analyzing measures to prevent it from happening again, he added.
Japan completed last Monday, after 18 days, the second phase of dumping into the sea the treated water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant damaged by an earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011.
This water was stored for a long time in tanks at the plant and was treated to eliminate radioactive substances, with the exception of tritium, which is only dangerous in very high concentrated doses, according to experts.
Tepco then dilutes the water with seawater before releasing it into the ocean, to ensure the level of radioactivity does not exceed limits.
The dumping into the sea was approved by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), but the project caused a diplomatic crisis between Japan and China, which suspended all imports of Japanese seafood products at the end of August.
During the first phase of 17 days, around 7,800 cubic meters of water containing tritium will have been discharged. In late August, Tepco said it was planning three more similar operations by the end of March 2024.
In total, Tokyo plans to release more than 1.3 million cubic meters of Fukushima water into the Pacific Ocean – the equivalent of 540 Olympic swimming pools – gradually, until the early 2050s, according to the current schedule.
Source: TSF
