TOKYO (AFP) – Four workers at the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant were splashed with water containing radioactive materials, with two of them hospitalised as a precaution, the plant operator said yesterday.
The incident on Wednesday highlights the dangers Japan still faces in decommissioning the plant that was knocked out by an immense tsunami in 2011 in the world’s worst atomic disaster since Chernobyl in 1986.
Five workers were cleaning pipes at the ALPS system filtering wastewater for release into the sea when two were splashed when a hose came off accidentally, a spokesman for operator TEPCO told AFP.
Two others were contaminated when they were cleaning up the spill, the spokesman said.
The radiation levels of the two hospitalised men’s bodies were at or above four becquerels per square centimetre, the threshold considered safe.
The possibility that the two men sustained burns due to radiation exposure is low, according to a doctor, TEPCO said.
“We’ve been told the condition of the two workers being hospitalised is stable,” the spokesman said.
“Both workers will stay in hospital for about two weeks for follow-up examinations,” he said.
