Two workers from Japan's stricken Fukushima nuclear plant have been
contaminated by high levels of radioactive iodine, the operator said
Monday, prompting fears over their long-term health.
The workers, reportedly men in their 30s and 40s, may have already been
exposed to radiation levels higher than the recently boosted official
annual limit, Japanese media suggested.
Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) said it had been measuring the
internal exposure to radiation of all employees involved in emergency
work at the Fukushima Daiichi plant crippled by the March 11 earthquake
and tsunami.
Internal exposure occurs when people take radioactive substances into their bodies through tainted air or food and drink.
The company notified the governmental atomic energy agency of the
possible problem and the agency confirmed that "the thyroid glands of
two male employees showed high levels of radiation (iodine-131)", TEPCO
said in a statement.
The Jiji Press news agency said the two workers had stopped working at
the plant and were not sick at the moment. They will undergo further
check-ups.
The inspection by the government agency found 9,760 and 7,690
becquerels of iodine-131 in the thyroid glands of the workers, 10 times
higher than other workers at Fukushima, reports said.
The two men were working at a variety of locations at Fukushima
Daiichi, including the central control room, in March and April,
including on March 11 and during the following days.
The tests sparked fears that their radiation exposure had been several hundred millisieverts, Jiji said.
A few days after the disaster, the government boosted the annual limit
of radiation exposure for emergency workers to 250 millisieverts from
100 as the nation battled the world's worst nuclear crisis since
Chernobyl in 1986.
No workers have been confirmed to have been exposed radiation higher than the annual limit since the disaster.
Radioactive iodine is known to accumulate in the thyroid gland. AFP
