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5 workers exposed to radioactive materials at Ibaraki nuclear facility

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The workers -- all men in their 20s to 50s -- wore masks to cover their mouths and noses but could have inhaled the radioactive materials.

Please tell me they don't mean the magical, all-purpose surgical masks.

Masato Kato, a senior official at the agency, said the workers were following "ordinary procedures" during their inspection work.

I see. Then it's all good.

8 ( +8 / -0 )

A bag used to cover a container for nuclear fuel materials tore when the workers were inspecting another container that included it, according to the agency.

Japan the land of plastic bags for stocking nuclear waste,

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/n-fukushima-a-20160613.jpg

If external bags are radioactive enough to contaminate workers, you definitely have leaks but knowing how Japan treats so lightly nuclear waste, nobody should be surprised.

8 ( +9 / -1 )

A bag used to cover a container for nuclear fuel materials tore

"A bag tore" sounds similar to the poor devils at Tokaimura in 1999 pouring uranium from a bucket into a funnel.

"A 35-year-old-man lies unconscious in a University of Tokyo Hospital intensive-care unit. He has been irradiated. Losing up to 20 liters of body fluids per day, the skin on half of his body is blackened, blistered, and falling off, his internal organs have failed, he is being kept alive by machines.

He is one of three victims of a criticality accident at a uranium-processing plant in Tokaimura. Doctors, surgical teams, and nurses constantly monitor his condition. His family sleep in an anteroom. All wait for signs that he will pull through the massive blood transfusions, the viruses and molds that have invaded his body, the stem-cell transplants, the skin grafts, the comas, the heart attacks, and the marauding phagocytes".

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2009/01/11/books/book-reviews/learning-life-lessons-in-83-days-of-death/#.WTc-otzraUk

At least these guys were wearing masks and gloves...

9 ( +10 / -1 )

ANd in a couple of months, when they are being eaten by cancer, "There is no way of knowing if it is the effect of exposure through work, or just a coinky-dink. Here's a plastic bag when you go into investigate."

4 ( +7 / -3 )

so japan has more than 50 nuclear reactors? i wonder how many of these experimental reactors there are? do they have to pass strict tests, are they on fault lines or situated in highly populated ares?

6 ( +7 / -1 )

I have the feeling that there is some 2 year vocational school in the styx of Japan filled with all the students that didn't have the smarts to get into a decent University supplying all these employees to the nuclear industry.

I mean surgical masks and bags for nuclear material, really??? Unless I have an "Iron Man suit", I would not be setting one foot in those outdated reactors

I think I have found my nomination for this year's "Darwin Award".

6 ( +7 / -1 )

An official at the agency said it is hard to say the detected level is "extremely small," although it does not pose an immediate threat to their health.

Standard statement. Wonder how the poor employees exposed feel about this?

4 ( +4 / -0 )

If radioactive material is in ones nose then that surely is internal....

5 ( +5 / -0 )

"No immediate threat to health."

Yes, well, most of us understand that radiation exposure takes a little time to manifest. Still, sniffing aplha emitting particles from a puff of plutonium dust must surely take some rinsing out.

(Both in Japanese)

https://this.kiji.is/244796788198260740?c=39546741839462401

http://ibarakinews.jp/news/newsdetail.php?f_jun=14967587239975

6 ( +6 / -0 )

Oh, and the apology at the news conference quoted above included the words, "what happened here was a totally unexpected event, speaking in the light of any previous experience." これまでの経験では想定できない事象

8 ( +8 / -0 )

If external bags are radioactive enough to contaminate workers, you definitely have leaks but knowing how Japan treats so lightly nuclear waste, nobody should be surprised.

Exactly.

Yes, well, most of us understand that radiation exposure takes a little time to manifest.

Of course, but like Smith said:

ANd in a couple of months, when they are being eaten by cancer, "There is no way of knowing if it is the effect of exposure through work, or just a coinky-dink. Here's a plastic bag when you go into investigate."

Standard operating procedure of the nuclear industry around the world

I have the feeling that there is some 2 year vocational school in the styx of Japan filled with all the students that didn't have the smarts to get into a decent University supplying all these employees to the nuclear industry.

Silvafan, these people are so obtuse that when Abe visited the Fukushima plant a few years back, the people there prepared a name tag for him- with the wrong Kanji for his name!! Think about that. These people are too dense to know the name of their own head of state. And not one of them thought to whip out his smartphone to check, say, wikipedia to see if they got the name right. Hell, even ENGLISH wikipedia has his name in Kanji, so it wasn't a particularly difficult task to find out how to spell it but there you go. And these are the people in charge of running the nuke plants??

Heaven help us all.

4 ( +6 / -2 )

This really is not funny, you would hope that "accidents" like this when dealing with radiation would have procedures. Was it the robustness of the plastic cover, was it working in a confined space. To many chiefs, or training Any of these are a serious breach of standards. At least they reported it, this time.

Aly that is a funny story, The PM needs a name tag, I assume for security, without it he won't be recognised? And the misspelling. Sums up the industry.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

Just saw on the TV that (at least) one of them inhaled a large dose of uranium/plutonium (22,000 Bq?) directly into his lungs, possibly the worst exposure in Japan to date.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

From what the news just said, it seems they are using old paper 1kg flour bags to store radioactive powder. "It ripped and tore open"...unbelievable? Who's in charge over there?

4 ( +4 / -0 )

And this news slowly slips into oblivion...

4 ( +4 / -0 )

The Japan Atomic Energy Agency said up to 24 becquerels of radioactive materials were found inside the noses of three of the workers, prompting the agency to check whether they face the danger of internal exposure to radiation.

The normal radioactivity of an adult human is 7000 Bq, so they found around a third of one percent of that.

-3 ( +1 / -4 )

22,000 Bq in his lungs. Plutonium 239. Just now on the evening news.

Or on J Yahoo,here,

https://news.yahoo.co.jp/pickup/6242422

3 ( +4 / -1 )

Ibaraki again ?

Seriously sounds like they have a local Government issue there.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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