information about Fukushima published in English in Japanese media info publiée en anglais dans la presse japonaise
19 Août 2013
August 19, 2013
The operator of Japan's crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant said on Aug. 19 two workers were found to be contaminated with radioactive particles, the second such incident in a week involving staff outside the site's main operations center.
Two dust monitors sounded alarms earlier on Aug. 19 outside the operations center, where radiation levels are usually low enough to avoid the need for full face masks, Tokyo Electric Power Co said in an emailed statement.
Two workers waiting for a bus at the end of their shift were found to have been contaminated with radioactive particles, which were wiped off their bodies before they left the site, Tokyo Electric, also known as TEPCO, said. Full body checks of the staff members showed no internal contamination.
The utility said it could not be sure the alarms were connected with the discovery of the contamination of the workers. The incident is being investigated.
Last week, the same monitors sounded alarms and 10 workers waiting for a bus were found to have been contaminated with particles. TEPCO said it suspected they came from a mist sprayer used to cool staff down during the current hot summer.
The mist sprayer has been turned off since last week.
The Fukushima plant was crippled by an earthquake and tsunami in March 2011, the world's worst nuclear disaster in a quarter century.
The government said this month it would step up its involvement in the plant's cleanup after announcing the station was leaking contaminated water into the ocean, following months of denials of a leakage by TEPCO.
Dust monitoring alarm went off at 10:04 AM again.
It’s located in front of the seismic isolation building. It went off on 8/12/2013 too.
This time the mist was turned off, which proves the contamination source is not the mist.
At 10:20 AM, two workers were found contaminated. They were waiting for the bus in front of the seismic isolation building.
Both of the workers had their top of heads contaminated. Tepco reported the highest contamination level was 13 Bq/cm2.
Tepco “wiped” the contaminated part to release the workers.
2 more workers at Fukushima Daiichi irradiated
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/20130819_24.html
Two more workers at the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant were found exposed to radiation above the safety limit. This is the second incident in a week. Tokyo Electric Power Company, the plant operator, is looking for a cause.
An alarm went off indicating rising radiation levels in the air when the 2 workers waited for a bus in front of a plant building on Monday morning. The building is used for preparations in decommissioning the damaged reactors.
Tests they took before leaving the plant compound showed radiation levels of nuclear substances up to 13 becquerels per square centimeter. That's 3 times the safety limit set by the operator.
TEPCO says the workers showed no immediate signs of illness. They received a health check, and the company says there was no indication of internal radiation exposure.
Last week, 10 workers waiting for a bus at the same spot were found to have unusually high radioactivity levels. Some blamed a mist-generating machine designed to prevent heatstroke. But this time the machine was not in use.
Aug. 19, 2013 - Updated 07:04 UTC
http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20130819p2a00m0na010000c.html
Radioactivity of up to 13 becquerels per square centimeter was detected on the heads of two workers at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant on Aug. 19, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) announced.
The two workers had been waiting for a bus in front of the plant's main quake-resistant building. TEPCO is investigating the cause of the contamination. The radioactivity limit set by the government is 40 becquerels per square centimeter.
TEPCO said that at shortly after 10 a.m. on Aug. 19, a dust monitor alarm at the main quake-resistant building sounded, which led to the discovery that the two workers were contaminated.
On Aug. 12, 10 workers were contaminated around the same area.
Officials said there had been no changes in the amount of water being injected into the plant's damaged reactors or the water temperatures of the fuel pools, and no variations had been registered at monitoring posts.
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