Two Fukushima Nuclear Plant Workers Hospitalised

Tokyo Electric Power Co. workers outside the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Japan's nuclear safety agency says that two workers at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant were taken to hospital on Thursday after being exposed to high-level radiation at the Number 3 reactor, NHK reports. The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency says the workers were standing on a flooded basement floor while working to reconnect power lines in the turbine building adjacent to the reactor. As a result, their feet were exposed to 170 to 180 millisieverts of radiation. The workers were taken to a local hospital before being moved to the National Institute of Radiological Sciences for treatment. A third worker was also exposed to the higher-level radiation but apparently did not require treatment. The maximum level of radiation exposure allowed for nuclear plant workers in Japan is normally 100 millisieverts. But the health and labor ministry has recently raised that limit to 250 millisieverts for emergency crews at the Fukushima plant. High radiation levels detected 30km off nuke plant Meanwhile, Japan's science ministry says levels of radioactive substances up to twice recommended limits were detected in waters 30 kilometres off the quake-damaged Fukushima nuclear plant. The ministry conducted a survey on Wednesday in 8 locations over a distance of 70 kilometres from north to south in the Pacific Ocean. Radioactive iodine-131 and radioactive caesium-137 were detected at all locations. Levels of radioactive iodine-131 were from 1.05 to 1.92 times higher than the limit. Readings for radioactive caesium-137 were all below the limit, but about 10,000 times higher than a similar survey last year. Another survey conducted by the Tokyo Electric Power Company on Wednesday detected radioactive iodine-131 at 146.9 times the limit, 330 metres away from a water outlet of the nuclear plant. The same substance was detected at a level 19.1 times higher than allowable limits on the coast 16 kilometres south of the plant. The science ministry says it will continue analysing the impact of the radioactivity on marine resources and the environment. A senior consultant at the Marine Ecology Research Institute, Jun Misonoo, says contamination decreases further off the coast. He says radioactive iodine-131 levels fall by half in 8 days, and the impact on fish fades away. Misonoo says that although radioactive caesium is unlikely to affect human health, monitoring should continue to assess its Tokyo lifts advice against tap water In other developments, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government says it has lifted its advice against using tap water for consumption by infants in Tokyo's 23 wards and 5 adjacent cities. The government said the level of radioactive iodine-131 in water at the Machinate purification plant on Thursday morning had dropped to 79 becquerels per litre - below the recommended limit of 100 for infants under one year old. The government added that the level has been falling for three days. The advisory had been issued after levels above the limit were detected at the plant on Tuesday and Wednesday. On Friday, the government plans to continue testing the level at the plant and distribute 240,000 bottles of water to households with infants, following similar distribution on Thursday. impact inside fish.