Current State of Post-Accident Operations at Fukushima Daiichi

By Hajime Matsukubo / CNIC.jp / March 31, 2015 / Many of the measuring instruments installed in the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (FDNPS) measuring system continue to malfunction as a result of the accident. Although there is no guarantee of the accuracy of values being measured, if the values from the measuring instruments are taken as the premise, from the water temperature in the containment vessels and the spent … Continue reading

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After 4 years, Fukushima Nuclear Cleanup Remains Daunting and Vast

By Julie Makinen / via latimes.com / March 11, 2015 / Neon pink and yellow banners flutter along the roadsides, their gentle flapping breaking an eerie stillness. The houses here are shut tight, the streets are nearly deserted, the fields that once sprouted rice, tomatoes and cucumbers are fallow. Shigeo Karimata dons a hard hat and a mask and prepares to get out of his car. “Some people say, ‘Oh, … Continue reading

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Construction Firm Exec. Arrested For Sending Teen To Help Fukushima Cleanup

via japantimes.co.jp / February 18, 2014 / Aichi Prefectural Police arrested a construction firm executive on Wednesday for sending a 15-year-old boy to help clean up radioactive waste outside the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant. The police said the boy, who is from Kitanagoya, Aichi Prefecture, was sent to Fukushima to cut contaminated leaves and scrape up dirt in the disaster zone last July. Japan’s labor law prohibits people under 18 … Continue reading

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Worker Dies at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant

via theguardian.co.uk / Januray 20, 2015 / A worker at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has died after falling into an empty water storage tank, in the latest of a series of accidents at the site of the worst nuclear disaster for a quarter of a century. The death was the second at Fukushima Daiichi in less than a year, but the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), … Continue reading

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Fukushima Forgotten: Plant Workers Feel Voters Don’t Realize Their Ordeal

via Japan Times / Decemeber 10, 2014 / As Sunday’s snap election nears, many of the people working toward the decommissioning of the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant say they want voters to know about their harsh working conditions, insufficient pay and worries of radiation exposure. Currently some 6,000 people a day are engaged in the decommissioning work at the plant — a process expected to take 30 to … Continue reading

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Fukushima £11bn cleanup progresses, but there is no cause for optimism

via The Guardian / November 14, 2014 / The man in charge of cleaning up the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has admitted there is little cause for optimism while thousands of workers continue their battle to contain huge quantities of radioactive water. The water problem is so severe that the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power [Tepco], and its myriad partner firms have enlisted almost all of their 6,000 … Continue reading

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Fukushima Workers Injured As Steel Material For Coolant Tank Collapses

via RT.com / November 7, 2014 / Three workers at the troubled Fukushima nuclear power plant were hurt during an operation to set up a coolant tank for contaminated water. A 13-meter-high steel construction collapsed on them. One of the workers has been left in critical condition after being knocked unconscious. He was transported to the hospital from the plant by helicopter, according to a TEPCO spokesman, AFP reported. A … Continue reading

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Japan In Depth / TEPCO Measures Fail To Hold Water

By Eiji Noyori and Hiroyuki Oyama / the-japan-times.com / September 11, 2014 / Three and a half years after the outbreak of the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, efforts to contain water contaminated with radioactive substances at the plant are at a crossroads. Resolving the radioactive water issue is the first hurdle toward decommissioning the plant. However, despite the time that has passed since the beginning … Continue reading

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Fukushima Daiichi Workers To Sue TEPCO

via NHK World / September 1, 2014 / Workers at the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant are planning to sue Tokyo Electric Power Company, demanding it pay wages suited for the dangerous work. Four male workers at a TEPCO subcontractor will file a lawsuit at the Iwaki branch of the Fukushima district court on Wednesday. The workers are doing plumbing work on tanks that store radioactive water at the plant. … Continue reading

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Nuclear Watchdog May Raise Radiation Exposure Limit For Emergencies

from Japan Times / July 30, 2014 / The Nuclear Regulation Authority said Wednesday it is considering raising the maximum radiation exposure limit for nuclear workers in emergencies, from the current 100 millisieverts. “We cannot completely deny the possibility” that accidents involving radiation exceeding the current limit would occur in the future, NRA Chairman Shunichi Tanaka said at an agency meeting, noting that “reality-based” working conditions should be prepared in … Continue reading

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Japan’s Nuclear Regulator To Review Exposure Limit

via NHK World / July 10, 2014 / Japan’s nuclear regulator says it will consider revisions to a law for protecting nuclear plant workers’ health in emergencies. The Nuclear Regulation Authority expressed the intent for the first time in response to a call from a Tokyo-based organization that addresses labor problems. In a meeting with NRA officials on Thursday, representatives from the Tokyo Occupational Safety&Health Center stressed that the revision … Continue reading

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Testimony of Former Fuksuhima Plant Manager Reveals Safety Inspectors Were First to Flee During Disaster

via Japan Daily Press / June 4, 2014 / Masao Yoshida (pictured) – the former plant manager of the Fukushima nuclear power plant during the time when it was hit by the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami in March 2011 – died of cancer last year, but his recorded testimony revealed a flaw in the disaster management process that probably caused the chaos around the way Tokyo Electric Power … Continue reading

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Government silent on report Fukushima No. 1 workers fled during crisis

from Japan Times / May 20, 2014 / The government on Tuesday refused to comment on a media report that Masao Yoshida, the now-deceased chief of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant at the time of the meltdowns, was quoted as saying most of the plant’s workers evacuated in spite of his order to remain. The daily Asahi Shimbun, which claims to have obtained a copy of an interview with … Continue reading

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?TEPCO under-calculated radiation exposure for 142 Fukushima workers

via RT.com / March 27, 2014 / Tokyo Electric Power Co. underestimated internal radiation exposure of 142 workers involved in immediate emergency operations at the damaged Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in March 2011, according to Japan’s Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry. After reexamining exposure records provided by TEPCO, the Ministry said Tuesday it had increased the 142 workers’ radiation data by an average of 5.86 millisieverts, The Asahi … Continue reading

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Fukushima worker reveals life inside wrecked nuclear power plant in manga comic book

via couriermail.com.au /  March 25, 2014 / First off, no one who works at Japan’s wrecked nuclear power plant calls it Fukushima Dai-ichi, comic-book artist Kazuto Tatsuta says in his book about his time on the job. It’s ichi efu, or 1F. It’s not “hell on earth,’’ but a life filled with a careful routine to protect against radiation. A good part of the day is spent putting on and … Continue reading

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Nearly 70% of decontamination firms still violating labor laws in Fukushima

via Enformable / March 18, 2014 / According to labor officials in Fukushima Prefecture, nearly 70% of the companies hired to conduct decontamination work after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster have been found to be in violation of multiple labor laws. In July 2013, the Fukushima Labor Bureau found that between January and June 2013, 68% of companies and firms engaged in decontamination work were violation labor laws.  The labor … Continue reading

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Squelching Efforts to Measure Fukushima Meltdown

By David McNeil / NY Times / In the chaotic, fearful weeks after the Fukushima nuclear crisis began, in March 2011, researchers struggled to measure the radioactive fallout unleashed on the public. Michio Aoyama’s initial findings were more startling than most. As a senior scientist at the Japanese government’s Meteorological Research Institute, he said levels of radioactive cesium 137 in the surface water of the Pacific Ocean could be 10,000 … Continue reading

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Fukushima No. 1 workers rally against TEPCO

via Japan Times / March 14, 2014 / Workers from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant rallied Friday outside the headquarters of Tokyo Electric Power Co., complaining they are being forced to work for meager pay in dangerous conditions. The group of about 100 demonstrators shouted and pumped their fists in the air as they railed against being cheated by contractors hired to find recruits to clean up the shattered … Continue reading

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3 Years On Risks of Radiation Exposure Remain High for Fukushima Workers

via Asahi Shimbun / March 9, 2014 / About half of the workers at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in the three years since the triple meltdown have been exposed to more than 5 millisieverts of radiation, a level used as a radiation exposure reference for humans. The levels of radiation exposure among workers at the crippled Fukushima plant have decreased since the 2011 nuclear accident, but there … Continue reading

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‘Duct tape, wire nets’ were used to mend #Fukushima water tanks

via Russia Today / January 5, 2014 / As TEPCO began preparations for the cleaning of the drainage system with tons of leaked radioactive water at the Fukushima power plant, a former employee reveals the reason for so many leaks was cost cutting measures such as using duct tape, Asahi reported. Yoshitatsu Uechi, auto mechanic and tour-bus driver, worked at the devastated nuclear power plant between July 2 and Dec. … Continue reading

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Japanese mafia hiring homeless to clean up Fukushima

by Alex Moore / via Death and Taxes / December 30, 2013 / Japan has been running way behind schedule cleaning up the Fukushima disaster, which is now nearly three years old. Tons of nuclear waste spilled into the Pacific when an earthquake stuck the coast of Japan and a tsunami topped the nuclear reactors. Cleaning up the nuclear waste is, as Reuters describes it, “one of the most undesirable … Continue reading

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Fukushima contractor sanctioned by Japan labor regulator

via Reuters / December 13, 2013 / Japanese labor regulators have sanctioned a construction firm involved in the decommissioning of the Fukushima nuclear power plant for improperly employing workers to repair another nuclear plant, also damaged by the 2011 earthquake. ABL Co Ltd, based in Okuma, where the Fukushima plant is located, managed at least eight workers who had been supplied illegally by several layers of subcontractors for inspection and … Continue reading

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Japanese company raises wages at Fukushima plant

via Press TV / November 9, 2013 / After coming under criticism for its handling of clean-up efforts, the operator of Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear plant says it will double the pay of contract workers at the station. Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) says hazard pay for thousands of workers will be increased from one hundred US dollars to two hundred US dollars a day. “It is extremely important to … Continue reading

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Hard Times in Fukushima

via JapanFocus.org / November 4, 2013 / With the third anniversary of Fukushima’s triple meltdown approaching, stories of incompetence and corruption in the nuclear cleanup are rife.  A team of Reuters’ reporters working in Japan has researched working conditions at Fukushima Daiichi and decontamination jobs outside the plant.  Their findings are shocking. Their report focuses on the testimony of three workers with different backgrounds: Hayashi Tetsuya, 41, whose case was … Continue reading

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Workers At #Fukushima ‘Sprayed’ With Radioactive Water

via eurasiareview.com / August 12, 2013 / Ten workers at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant were exposed to radiation from contaminated mist, TEPCO says. Workers in the building were prohibited from using tap water, which comes from the same tainted source 10 km from the facility. Exposure levels detected by radiation monitors worn by workers were found to be as much as 10 becquerels per square centimeter – 2.5 … Continue reading

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Estimated #Fukushima decontamination costs blow out to $50b

via NHK World / July 24, 2013 / Experts estimate that cleaning up radioactivity in Fukushima Prefecture would cost 50 billion dollars, more than 4 times the amount that has been earmarked. Experts from the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology studied the cost of decontamination for the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident. They estimate that decontamination in no-entry zones will cost up to 20 billion dollars, and in … Continue reading

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Former #Fukushima Chief, Masao Yoshida, dies aged 58

via HuffingtonPost.com / July 10th, 2013 / Masao Yoshida, the man who led the life-risking battle at Japan’s crippled nuclear power plant when it was spiraling into meltdowns, died Tuesday of cancer of the esophagus. He was 58. Tokyo Electric Power Co. spokesman Yoshimi Hitosugi said Yoshida died at a Tokyo hospital. TEPCO officials said his illness was not related to radiation exposure. Yoshida led efforts to stabilize the Fukushima … Continue reading

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