NEW DELHI: In the third accident in two weeks, six workers at the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan were drenched in highly radioactive water. The mishap happened when four workers mistakenly detached a pipe that connected to a tank full of contaminated water. Two other workers who rushed to help were also affected. Seven metric tons of water escaped, the nuclear plant operator Tepco said.
The leaked water was found to have beta radiation levels of 34 million becquerels per liter, Tepco said in a statement. Beta radiation includes strontium-90, which has been linked to causing cancers such as leukemia.
The workers were wearing protective clothing and are not thought to have inhaled any contaminants, a spokesperson of Tepco said. Radiation exposure tests are being done on the workers.
""It is serious in that it was another problem caused by carelessness, but I do not believe it is a seriously troubling dosage,"" Shunichi Tanaka, chairman of Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority, said on Wednesday, Reuters reports.
""But the fact that there has been a string of incidents occurring on a daily basis that could have been avoided - I think that is the large problem.""
Earlier this week, a pump used to cool the plant's No. 1 reactor briefly stopped after a worker mistakenly pushed a stop button on the device, according to the Nuclear Regulation Authority. A miscalculation by cleanup crews is thought to have allowed a tank holding contaminated water to overflow on Oct. 3, Tepco said.
"The work environment and on-site morale need to be improved overall," NRA Chairman Shunichi Tanaka said today at a press conference. "Carelessness is a problem that can't just be regulated away."
Tepco also today released details of its investigation into the August leak of 300 metric tons of contaminated water from a storage tank, concluding that the accident was probably caused by corrosion around faulty seals, Bloomberg reports.
The water appears to have escaped through metal corroded by water that seeped in between two of the plates that make up the walls of the tank, Tepco said. The leak, first detected on Aug. 19, was described by Japan's nuclear regulator as the worst accident at Fukushima since the earthquake and tsunami of 2011 caused reactors to melt.
Two cracks were found near the bottom of the tank, the company said in a statement. One was about 3 millimeters (0.12 inches) wide and 22 millimeters long, while the other was 2 millimeters to 3 millimeters wide and 11 millimeters long.
The plant has more than 1,000 tanks holding in excess of 380,000 tons of water irradiated from contact with reactor fuel. About 300 of the tanks are of the same bolted variety as the leaking tank. That leak may have been going on for several weeks before it was detected, Tepco has said.
The impact of the nuclear crisis was also being felt away from the power plant, with Fukushima's government announcing that cesium levels for rice grown in the prefecture exceeded legal limits.
Levels of 120 becquerels per kilogram were detected in some rice produced in Minamisoma city, near the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant, higher than the legal limit of 100 becquerels, according to a statement from the prefecture yesterday, Bloomberg reports.
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