
Handout / Reuters
Workers wearing protective suits remove unused nuclear components stored in the spent fuel pool of the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant No. 4 reactor building on Thursday.
A subcontractor urged workers at Japan's stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant to put lead around radiation detection devices in order to stay under a safety threshold for exposure, according to reports.
An executive in his mid-50s told the workers in December to attach the lead plates to the alarm pocket dosimeters that plant owner Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) had given them with to monitor exposure, sources close to the matter said, according to a report by Kyodo News on Saturday.
Dosimeters can be worn as badges or carried as devices around the size of a smart phone to detect radiation.
Protesting as Japan regains nuclear power
Nine workers wore the lead plates around the devices once after the executive's request, public broadcaster NHK said, citing the subcontractor's president.
Japan's disaster at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in March 2011 contaminated the land around it so badly that the area was effectively a write-off. Today the radiation-infected area is known by a name Ray Bradbury would like: "the exclusion zone." NBC News Chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel reports from inside the zone, part of his report for Rock Center with Brian Williams airing Wednesday, Mar. 7, at 10pm/9c on NBC.
Japan's health ministry said on Sunday it would investigate the reports, Reuters reported.
Japanese law has set an annual radiation exposure safety threshold of 50 millisieverts for nuclear plant workers during normal operations.
Study: Japan feared 'devil's chain reaction' at nuke plant
But a massive earthquake and tsunami that crippled the Fukushima plant in March 2011 led to a breach of containment structures that released radiation, keeping large areas around the plant off limits more than a year later.
A Tokyo Electric Power spokesman told Reuters the company was aware from a separate contractor that Build-Up made the lead shields, but that they were never used at the nuclear plant.
Build-Up could not be reached for comment, Reuters reported.
Reuters contributed to this report.
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All rain around the world is now radioactive, studies have proved. This rain is then absorbed into the ground and the environment, ie., food, drinking water, the entire eco-system. There's just some things the elite in the world had rather not tell the public. The rain that falls at your home, is already radioactive, from years of neglecting the environment. It's too late now, the trains already left the station.
I am old enough that I can say that," I have seen the best that this world has to offer." My ole man paid 16K for our first house. I paid $1700 for my first car, at $73- a month. We all had paid health insurance thru our employers and the cops just made us pour out our beer when we got caught drinking. You poor youngsters today. You missed America.
I agree, I think we saw the golden age of American come and go all in one lifetime. Too bad, growing up when you could get a clerk to sell you a six pack, when there was no AIDS, when could order a gun mail order, when everything in the world wasn't PC, when you actually learned how read, write, and add in school, those were indeed the days.
You are right on, kids nowadays have no idea what real freedom is, what a wonderful world they missed out on.
I was just curious if the era you speak of is the hippie era (mid-late 60s, and 70s) when there were riots and protests everywhere, the youth drug problem (the beginning of it all) was in huge swing, yippies were screaming revolution. Then came the gas shortage and all the problems of the 70s which the media was Constantly drilling into everyone's head and telling us how bad things were? Or perhaps the great depression and then world war? I hope you're talking about the in-between times.
Let this tidbit of knowledge about our dear friends, 'the Japanese,' give pause and a needed understanding that they 'wrote the book' on business success at ANY cost!
Lest we forget these same masters of the island empire also sent 'older employees as volunteers' into the radiated power plants knowing they would die soon as a result of exposure. 'Gambatte!' (do your best!) for Nippon!
Does anybody think they feel badly that the refuse of their earthquake is now washing up on our West Coast? Or that they certainly will compensate the U.S.?
The Japanese have done well as an economy as they use tactics that Williard Romney would swoon over. Hey, it's their dirt pile so i don't care much what they do.....but I do keep a watchful eye on general political trends there. Don't really want to see another 'Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere'...if you get my drift.
Keep your fascist ideals to yourself, you xenophobic ass. Typical liberal hate monger, disgusting.
Ah greed; It may be what kills us in the end but if you asked me 20 years ago I would've said stupidity and/or not caring is what may kill us though they will not be too far behind greed because greed makes a lot of people stupid or uncaring and this is proof of that fact..
1 thihg I think all countries and all races can agree on, obama your welfare momma is an idiot !!!!
If this is true, it just proves even more how little respect corporations have for people. The Japanese should be made to pay for all the damage that's being caused by the radiation that is being found in our ocean and in the fish that are being caught for public consumption and all the wreckage washing up on our shores, but will anyone press that, will our government demand damages for their lies and maybe the deaths of Americans being exposed to readiation in our food, of course not. This is the world we live in now. God damn them.
jpsholly: Should all US citizens be made to pay for the Bhopal disaster? After all, that killed between 2,259 and 3,787 people, which is actually between 2,259 and 3,787 more people than have been killed by the Fukushima disaster.
Should citizens of the US have paid to clean up debris washed ashore in foreign territories from, say, the Galveston (hurricaine) disaster of 1900?
Where are all the sheeple that want to talk about left & right issues? This should be a total wake up call to those who still think the Government is on your side. The only permit you need to shoot whoever tries to take your guns is the 2nd Amendment. This is the last straw for many Americans. It is time to take our Country back.
This is a joke. Anybody who thought we were in the clear from the radiation are totally asleep to reality. Not only a coverup by the Japanese government, but a total coverup by the mainstream media as well. By NOT reporting the REAL truth you media jackasses, you have only helped the demise of this planet. Think about that the next time you decide to turn the other cheek to something this serious and report on something that doesn't even matter. You reporters are scum.
There is no such thing as fail proof, it's only a matter of time before it happens again. Wind and solar work wonderfully, my panels will pay back in 6 years, and the utility pays me for supplying them electricity. Add nat gas and those three are all we need to power the country.
If everyone who bitched about the environment, nuclear, etc. actually went out a bought a roof full of panels we wouldn't need to go through this crap. Time to put your money where your mouth is, even if you have to take out a loan to do it.
If a boss ever told me that, while I was working to clean up a disaster. I would drag his ass in there without safety gear and make him drink a quart of the water in the pool. Im dead serious.
i remember the initial videos of the fukushima reactor explosions, the camera crews following the workers, and the scenes of the radiation detectors going straight to overload readings, the workers were unfamiliar with how to set up the devices to take accurate measurements from the start, and now the japanese have come up with this as an explanation?
what say we have some people that have read the instructions on the radiation testers take some accurate readings, and provide the world with some accurate information. the proximity to the ocean is a real concern, with all the hundreds of people sickened from eating sushi recently in the usa, there must be a lot more contamination on a much larger scale than the half assed japanese are willing to admit to.
the last news reports were telling of nothing but a plastic tarp covering the radioactive pools from the environment, with all the rain, how much new radioactive contamination is flowing out into the environment?
oooo my: You can check http://blog.safecast.org/ for independent radiation readings from all around Japan. Also reported are those from NGOs and governmental organizations. All are pretty much the same.
Must have been coached by the same experts here in the US who "UNDERPLAY" everything to their advantage including the cost of the warS (and defense spending), state of the ecomomy (debt crisis), mismanagement of public funds, etc. Why not run some stories on how the US is misleading the public on downplaying simiar problems here... what is happening overseas is not surprising because the US is leading the way.
do you really think this was not known how long did it take for smokers to understand that tobacco kills, oh yea that's right, we still sell tobacco, but as Americans we seem to act surprised that other countries practice the same corrupt ideologies as we do, remember illegal aliens contribute to the over all economic state in America, so we will not enforce existing laws, corruption at home,
Look, the Japan governmet said everything was safe......ALRIGHT?
Stop stiring the pot and starting trouble.............move along now, there is nothing to see here......com'n folks, just move along.
Herewegoagain-3022003: When did "the Japan governmet [say] everything was safe..."? It's the first I've heard of it.
critical times hard to deal with, will be here.
Bring back seppuku to Japan.