• Worker at Japan's tsunami-hit Fukushima nuclear plant: Firm sent crews into danger

    AP, file

    In this photo released by Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, a Tokyo Electric Power Co. worker looks at gauges in the control room for Unit 1 and Unit 2 at the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant on March 23, 2011.

    By NBC News wire reports

    IWAKI, Japan - The operator of a Japanese nuclear plant that went into a tsunami-triggered meltdown knew the risks from highly radioactive water at the site but sent in crews without adequate protection or warnings, a worker alleges in a legal complaint. 

    The actions by Tokyo Electric Power Co. led to radiation injuries, said the contract worker, who was with a six-member team working at the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi plant's Unit 3 reactor in the early days of last year's crisis. 

    The worker gave a rare public account of what happened at the plant during the accident. He spoke to The Associated Press on the condition that he was identified only as Shinichi, his given name. 

    Shinichi, 46, described a harrowing scene of darkness and fear, wading with headlamps into a flooded basement through steaming radioactive water that felt warm even through workers' boots.  "It was outrageous. We shouldn't even have been there," he said. 

    He said his six-member team was sent to lay electric cables in the basement of the Unit 3 turbine on March 24, 10 days after its reactor building exploded, spewing massive amounts of radiation into the environment. Their mission was to restore power to pumps to inject cooling water into its overheating spent fuel pool. 

    Shinichi said TEPCO and its primary subcontractor never warned them even though water leaks had been found elsewhere at the plant. 

    Slideshow: Devastation in Japan after quake

    AP

    A 9.0-magnitude earthquake triggers a tsunami, causing enormous damage and killing thousands.

    Launch slideshow

    Asked about Shinichi's allegations, TEPCO spokesman Yoshimi Hitosugi said the plant was aware of water leaks elsewhere but couldn't anticipate the water problem in Unit 3's basement. 

    Shinichi's radiation exposure that day alone exceeded half the government's annual exposure limit, and he had to stop working on plant jobs soon afterward. 


    Out of fear of harassment of his family due to the tendency of some Japanese to stigmatize those perceived as different or as troublemakers, Shinichi agreed to speak with the AP and several Japanese reporters on condition his face not be photographed.

    On Tuesday, he filed a complaint with a labor standards office in Fukushima, asking authorities to confirm TEPCO's safety violations and issue improvement orders. He also is seeking penalties — up to six months in jail or fines of up to 500,000 yen ($6,250) under the Industrial Safety and Health Act — against the company that supervised him. 

    'Unjust treatment'
    Shinichi's direct employer — the subcontractor for TEPCO — stopped calling him for jobs in March, just telling him to stand by. He now works on radiation decontamination of "hot spots" in Fukushima prefecture. 

    "So I decided I've had enough of this unjust treatment. That's why I decided to come forward," he said. 

    Koji Sasahara / AP

    Shinichi, a contract worker of Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), speaks during a press conference in Tokyo on Thursday.

    On the morning of March 24, 2011, Shinichi's team gathered at Fukushima Dai-ichi's emergency command center to be briefed about the day's work. They donned double-layer coveralls underneath waterproof hazmat suits, charcoal-filtered, full-face masks and double-layered rubber gloves. 

    Decline in white blood cells
    Each picked up a pocket dosimeter, with an alarm set to 40 times the dose detected the day before, expecting only a moderate increase of radioactivity. The actual reading was 400 millisieverts that day — high enough to cause a temporary, but not life-threatening, decline in white blood cells. 

    More Japan coverage from NBC News

    The March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami destroyed power and crucial cooling systems at the plant, sending three reactors into meltdowns and releasing massive amounts of radiation. Tons of cooling water were pumped into the overheated and damaged reactors and leaked right out, pouring into the basements of the buildings housing them and nearby facilities. 

    Shinichi recalled a simple instruction: Just go in and connect the first floor and basement electrical switchboards. The radioactivity might be a bit high, but shouldn't be a problem. 

    "There was no mention of the water," Shinichi said. 

    Three of Japan's top nuclear officials will be fired in the wake of the crisis at the Fukushima nuclear plant. Japan's prime minister has promised a complete overhaul of nuclear safety and a shakeup in the country's energy policy. John Sparks of Channel 4, Europe reports.

    So the men wore whatever boots were available — only two wore knee-high rubber boots, and four others, including Shinichi, wore short ones. 

    With only headlamps on their helmets to light the way, they entered the building from a hole cut into the wall, since the electric door was still inoperable. Three men hired by two other contractors went into the basement, while Shinichi and his two colleagues waited on the first floor. Looking down, he saw water, with steam rising from the surface, and heaps of debris and mangled equipment. 

    "It was eerie," he said. "If you're a nuclear plant worker, you know that water on the floor is bad news. You just don't touch it." 

    The dosimeter alarms — set to beep five times before reaching a maximum — sounded several times shortly after they entered the site. 

    Alarms sound
    Seconds after the three workers started going into the basement, the dosimeters began ringing loudly and then went silent, a sign the intended limit was exceeded, though the team's leader said it must be an error. The three workers in the basement waded through the ankle-deep water to check the wall-mounted switchboard and came back up, saying the water felt warm through their rubber boots. 

    Another team sent in to do other tasks rushed back out without doing any work, ignoring Shinichi's team, after measuring dangerously high radioactivity in the basement. 

    Slideshow: Triple tragedy for Japan

    An earthquake, a tsunami, a nuclear meltdown -- residents of Japan's northeast coast suffered through three intertwined disasters after a massive 9.0 magnitude temblor struck off the coast on March 11, 2011.

    Launch slideshow

    But his group stayed, making several more trips into the flooded basement. Two workers wearing short boots got their feet soaked and suffered beta-ray burns which were not life threatening. The three men who stayed there the longest were exposed to about 180 millisieverts — nearly four times the annual safe limit, according to a government report released in July. Shinichi refused to help tie up the dangling cable in the basement because of his short boots, and a colleague wearing long boots volunteered to do it instead, saving Shinichi from injury. 

    Where to put Fukushima's radioactive water?

    TEPCO spokeswoman Mayumi Yoshida said the team leaders later told officials that they decided to stay because they took their mission very seriously and that they might have been too occupied to think carefully about the water. But TEPCO should have thought more carefully given the unpredictable plant conditions, she said. 

    Shinichi's radiation exposure from 13 days of working at the plant was just over 20 millisieverts, not considered a serious health risk, though he still worries. 

    'Lacked consideration' for workers
    His lawyers, who are representing several nuclear plant workers in other cases, say TEPCO and its top contractor Kandenko illegally sent him and five other men into areas with radioactivity far exceeding the allowable limit without full protection. 

    "Just sending the workers into the harsh environment and putting them at risk of exposure to dangerously high radiation is a labor safety violation," said Taku Yamazoe, a lawyer representing Shinichi. "Even if TEPCO didn't anticipate the consequences of all that water it had pumped in, it clearly lacked consideration for the workers' safety." 

    The area surrounding the Fukushima Daiichi plant is a hotspot of radiation nearly a year after the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) plant suffered a triple meltdown in the wake of the powerful earthquake and tsunami that ravaged Japan.  TEPCO Communications Manager Hiro Hasegawa says the power company has been cleaning up radioactive waste and providing compensation to those who were affected by the disaster.  However, lawyer and activist Ito Kazuku says TEPCO's compensation is not enough for the people who have lived in the exclusion zone.

    Shinichi's experience was typical of the inadequate protection received by workers laboring in the extremely harsh conditions at the plant, though Yamazoe said the multi-tiered subcontracting system used at nuclear plants can obscure who is directly responsible in case of an accident. 

    Investigations by the government, parliament and private groups have faulted TEPCO for inept crisis management, inadequate emergency training and miscommunication with authorities. 

    More international coverage from NBC News

    The parliamentary investigation took TEPCO to task for failing to deal with leaking contaminated water until the two workers suffered beta-ray burns in Unit 3, concluding that the operator was fully aware of the consequences of massive spraying and pumping of water into the reactors and spent fuel pools from the very beginning. 

    Shinichi said that when he finished work at the nuclear plant each day, he would take off his clothes before entering his home to minimize the risk of radiation exposure for his 5-year-old son. He would toss the clothes into the washing machine and immediately rush into a bath. 

    Officials in Japan use an unmanned helicopter to measure radiation levels near Japan's damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant, which was nearly destroyed by a tsunami and earthquake in 2011. NBC's Richard Lui reports.

    Many other nuclear workers face the same worries, he said. 

    "I don't have education, and I'm already over 40. There is little choice," he said. "I was dumped. I worked hard, sacrificed my family and my child and this is how I ended up."

    The operator of the Fukushima nuclear power plant last week said it could not rule out the possibility that it may still be leaking radiation into the sea.

    The comment by TEPCO follows a U.S. academic journal Science article that said high radiation levels in bottom-dwelling fish caught off Fukushima prefecture indicate continued radiation leaking from the plant.

    Fishing off Fukushima prefecture, north of Tokyo, is prohibited except for test fishing for a few species such as certain types of octopus and squid, which are shipped only when they are found to be safe.

    The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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  • Apple's China supplier pushes for brain-damaged worker to leave hospital

    Reuters, file

    Zhang Tingzhen (center) is given a doll to play with by his mother Wei Xiuying while sitting beside his father Zhang Guangde at a Shenzhen hospital in southern China Sept. 26.

    By Reuters

    HONG KONG - Apple's largest contract manufacturer has been pushing for a Chinese worker left brain-damaged in a factory accident to be removed from hospital in a case that throws a harsh new spotlight on labor rights in China.


    Zhang Tingzhen, 26, an employee of Taiwan firm Foxconn, had nearly half his brain surgically removed after surviving an electric shock at a plant in southern China a year ago. He remains in hospital under close observation by doctors, unable to speak or walk properly.

    However, Foxconn, which is paying Zhang's hospital bills, has been sending telephone text messages to his family since July, demanding they remove him from hospital and threatening to cut off funding for his treatment -- a move the firm says would be justified under Chinese labor law.

    Foxconn confirmed it had sent the messages, saying that under Chinese law the worker must submit himself to a disability assessment, a process that in Zhang's case would require him to be discharged from the Shenzhen hospital and travel the 43 miles to Huizhou, where he was first hired by Foxconn.

    As Apple CEO Tim Cook visits China to see factories firsthand, the Fair Labor Association's Auret Van Heerden tells cnbc about the overtime issues and safety risks found at two of Foxconn's factories that produce Apple products.

    Risk of brain hemorrhage
    The firm said in response to emailed questions that it would be prepared to return Zhang to the Shenzhen hospital after the assessment, though his father said Zhang was unfit to travel and that doctors felt he remained at risk of a brain hemorrhage.

    The case has raised fresh questions over the labor record of Foxconn, one of the biggest and most high-profile private employers in China, after a series of well-publicized suicides among its army of around a million workers and recent outbursts of labor unrest.

    Report: Riots break out at Foxconn factory in China

    It has angered labor activists who say Zhang's plight also highlights China's patchy and sometimes precarious welfare system for workers seriously injured in industrial accidents and point out that there are many workers worse off than Zhang.

    "They kept sending me SMSs every day to get my son out of hospital and to appear before an injury assessment body or they will stop paying all expenses, including his medical fees and our living expenses," Zhang's father, Zhang Guangde, said.

    "You cannot imagine the suffering they put me through, how I had to fight every inch of the way just to get money so we can take care of our son," he added, speaking at his son's bedside at the Number 2 People's Hospital in Shenzhen.

    Zhang was repairing a spotlight on an external wall at a Foxconn factory in Shenzhen, bordering Hong Kong, when he received an electric shock and fell 12 feet to the ground. He has since undergone five operations, has lost his memory, is incontinent and requires careful, regular monitoring.

    Worker at Apple-supplier Foxconn in China: 'We're humans, we're not machines'

    Workers who are disabled in workplace accidents and covered by insurance are eligible for compensation payouts, once their disability is assessed and graded by a panel of medical experts. The assessment is done after medical treatment is finished.

    Foxconn sent the text messages -- and according to Zhang's father at one point briefly halted payments to the family -- despite a provincial law stipulating that injured workers can remain in treatment for up to two years before they must be assessed for disability compensation.

    The company, however, denied that it delayed or stopped payments, saying it paid them on time.

    Zhang, whose case was alerted to Reuters by labor activists, has been in hospital since October 2011.

    'At the mercy' of system
    Doctors at the Number 2 People's Hospital declined to comment for this article, but Zhang's father, 50, said they had not indicated that he could be discharged and had said they needed to keep his son under observation after implanting a tube in his body to drain fluid from his brain cavity to his bladder.

    "The doctor told me they needed to monitor his condition and that for such serious injuries, a person was allowed to be treated in hospital for up to two years. After that, assessors can order treatment to be prolonged," the father said.

    Labor activists in China say Zhang is just one of many thousands of Chinese workers who are left permanently disabled or chronically ill by workplace accidents, at the mercy of a system that often requires them and their families to fight degrading battles for treatment funding and compensation.

    'This American Life' retracts damning report on Apple manufacturer Foxconn

    "China now has laws specifying the types of compensation that are due to workers. But in many serious industrial accidents, companies still put workers or their families through a lot of suffering just to get what is due to them," said Choi Suet-wah of the Chinese Working Women Network in Hong Kong.

    "They are robbed of their dignity," said Choi, who has extensive experience working with migrant workers in China.

    Zhang is actually one of the lucky ones, social workers say, pointing out that Foxconn has at least been paying his hospital bills and the living expenses of his family, which has moved to Shenzhen from central China to be with him.

    Worker suicide at Chinese plant of Apple supplier, Foxconn

    They estimate that at least four out of 10 Chinese workers are not covered by any kind of insurance and are left to fend for themselves when seriously injured in the workplace -- despite laws requiring all employers to insure their workers.

    "This is just one of many, many industrial accidents in China. And you almost certainly never get what you are entitled to, especially in serious cases," Choi said.

    Dad: Son calls me 'mother'
    Foxconn says it is insured against workplace accidents, which means its insurer would meet the cost of a compensation payment once Zhang's disability is finally assessed.

    But compensation in China can vary depending on the city in which a worker's disability is assessed, and this, according to Zhang's family, is why Foxconn wants him to travel to Huizhou and refuses to have him assessed in Shenzhen.

    Labor activists say wages and compensation levels are all substantially lower in Huizhou than in Shenzhen, one of the most expensive cities in China.

    When asked why Zhang could not be assessed in Shenzhen, Foxconn said the law required him to go to Huizhou because he had signed his employment contract there. It added that it was prepared to send him back to the hospital in Shenzhen if the assessors determined that he required more medical attention.

    In hospital, Zhang walks unsteadily, holding on to the bed frames of other patients in his shared room and, with a smile, sits down next to his father whose face tightens with emotion.

    "He calls me 'mother' and calls my wife 'father.’ He can only mimic words you ask him to say, it is meaningless," the elder Zhang said later, holding a jar containing large fragments of his son's cranium. Doctors replaced a portion of Zhang's skull with synthetic bone.

    He said that despite Foxconn's funding -- a monthly allowance of 11,000 yuan ($1,800) plus treatment costs -- the family had racked up 200,000 yuan ($31,800) in debt to pay for medicines not provided by the hospital and other expenses.

    Back home in central Henan province, the family was building a house for Zhang to live in after his impending marriage when he was injured.

    "We were building a three-story house," the elder Zhang said. "The project has since been abandoned and all the building materials we bought have been washed away by rain. But these workers still have to be paid. My whole life is over."

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