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© 2011 AFPFukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant worker dies
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© 2011 AFP
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Mirai Hayashi
TEPCO ....no one believes you anymore...why? Because you lied!!!!
cactusJack
possibly maybe not related to radiation exposure...gotta love those odds.
some14some
heatstroke, possibly. shame on you TEPCO.
borscht
Good. Glad to know TEPCO is covering its butt before any investigation. I guess they Have learned something.
Whenever you have employees dying on the job, shouldn't management take a look at what they were doing and, oh, I don't know, think about writing a manual to avoid those 'accidents'. How many TEPCO employees usually die in a six-month period?
WilliB
So everybody who dies from now on dies because of Tepco? That the kind of accounting that the Hiroshima government uses to calculate atomic bomb victims.... now apparently adopted by some here.
NetNinja
I know a few doctors and nurses who are about to be very rich people if they can't find it in themselves to be whistleblowers. I wish I could see if the staff were wearing radiation gear when around this guy.
Lets hope that TEPCO waste a lot of money paying staff off and then the parents ask for an independent autopsy.
Utrack
What about the missing 143 workers?
southsakai
Tepco, oh Tepco who's going to believe you now?
nath
Darren.
The ONLY time face-masks don't make a proper seal is usually due to facial hair. Hence why firemen, etc are ordered to be clean-shaven as their life depends on it.
And, yes, clothing, etc don't protect against gamma radiation and yes keeping the alpha and beta readiation out is the major task of those suits.
30 seconds on google will tell you as much.
As for geiger counters as I said before unless you buy an expensive one it might not be properly calibrated, certified, etc and thus next to useless, ditto for all those Smartphone apps and add-ons that are popular now.
gaijintraveller
Was he a TEPCO employee or working for a subcontractor? The are many dodgy, possibly even yakuza related, subcontractors in this country that handle dangerous jobs.
Badge213
Just because someone worked in a nuclear powerplant doesn't mean he died because of radiation. I knew someone who had to leave the military because of an injury, wasn't combat related, wasn't even related to his work, slipped and fell while shopping at the grocery store.
smithinjapan
“He had been exposed to a small amount of radiation. It is difficult to assume that radiation was a cause of his death,”
It's difficult to assume it's NOT radiation that's the cause (or part of it), and a lot more realistic to assume it was, as well.
Christina O'Neill
Hope the investigation into this mans demise is both thorough and totaly independant and the results are published. To his family and friends my condolences RIP
nath
I bet he smoked a lot and played a lot of pachinko. Was a temp day worker for sure, lied to to get some cash. RIP fella
jforce
Lemmings do as lemmings do. Poor guy. Getting very frustrating to hear no outrage from my counterparts and colleagues over any of this. Not even a "ho" or a "humm". Just odd.
gogogo
but likely.
CrazyJoe
Another worker "killed in the line of duty" by TEPCO.
tokyokawasaki
When will TEPCO ever issue a clear and congruent statement. I bet a team of lawyers issues all their (cover your ass) statements.
uzneko
He did not die of radiation, people do not die that quickly from such low doses. Please stop trying to instill fear in others by saying it was radiation.
kaketama
There is no relation between this case and radiation? Anyway It is the fact that the worker died due to the accident caused by TEPCO.
142StanfordBinet
uzneko,
Some people can die that quickly from radiation. Since the radioactive atoms damage the body randomly and unpredictably, it is possible that, for example, Cesium could have found its way to his heart muscle and damaged it.
Also, if he had inhaled some plutonium particles, he could die very, very quickly. Plutonium is named after the God of the Dead, because only a few atoms are enough to kill a person.
Try to watch the movie "Chernobyl Heart." It describes the health effects of radioactive Cesium on young people in Bellarus, downwind from Chernobyl. It is a terrible tragedy there. I weep for the next generation of Japanese children.
Airion
Any hint of yet another chance to demonize Tepco, and some people here get excited.
Johannes Weber
The discussion is waged on an unscientific level. If the dosimeters and Geiger counters reported a gamma exposure of 2 mSv that is really not a big deal. However, anybody assuming that safety standards are properly maintained at Fukushima Daiichi and that there is no significant amount of alpha emitters around is just plainly naive (or stupid or probably both).
If this guy incorporated alpha emitters (like plutonium in solution in tiny water droplets in wet air), then he had been on a certain downward path towards a painful death. Due to the fact that I know how carelessly many Japananese people treat their own safety and health, this is the most probable reason for his demise.
How on earth could anyone be so stupid to look at the gamma dose only? It enrages me as a nuclear physicist to read things like this! More clear indications of whitewashing and unprofessional handling of the accident!
Raja Timilsina
Jaapangal i don't know where do u get all those ideas for comment, it is kind of interesting i really look for your comments, that makes article more interesting.....lol i agree he must have gone to "Pachinko "
The Munya Times
Then he possibly died of the usual medical malpractice, which takes a toll on more life here every year than the nuclear disaster but we just don't understand or simply cannot prove it.
tmtmsnb
When weighing between keeping one's own job and saving others' lives, one usually chooses the former. You need a third, neutral party to handle these things.
FernandoUchiyama
Seriously. The situation in Japan is ridiculous. The country don't have any natural mechanisms to protect against fraud and dishonesty. Where is the media? Where are the voice of people denouncing who is doing wrong things? Until when the society will keep being obedient, respecting everyone elses fault? In my opinion, freedom of expression and the right to speak without censorship and limitations, are what the japanese need. I lived in Japan for three years and I can guarantee: ordinary citizens dont have this right in Japan. Its a society full of rules and prejudices, formed mostly by ingenuos people. Japanese, open your eyes, you need to weak up, to have attitude!
kaketama
zichi
you may be right. This case might come from the personal health condition. But I stil think that working at the plant with potential to be exposed to radioactive is completely different from working at the rest of plants. It certainly put too much stress on the worker, that would lead to this death.
smithinjapan
zichi: "if he died because of bad health then he would have dies wherever he had been working, so it wasn't related to the accident."
Not the case at all. You said yourself that it's unlikely radiation but instead the conditions (ie. in a suit on hot days) that contributed to his illness. Those working conditions are a direct result of the accident, no? It's not like the same result would have been guaranteed if he had been working a surf-board rental shop on Oahu Island.
Point is that the company is immediately trying to discount that radiation played a part, but it may well have been a contributing factor. I'm quite sure the 'investigation' will find that radiation had nothing to do with it.
The Munya Times
They are not that stupid, but they have sufficient supply of human lives and even if all of them die human lives will still cost only the tiny percent of the dosimeters and protective gears if they should decide to buy a few ones.
They just don't care, there are more than 120 mill lives in Japan. They are spoiled for choices as of human resources.
Sounds nasty but the point is if you have two dosimeters and leave them in a dark room for one night you open the door next morning and you find the same two there. If you do the same with two humans, it takes only a few months and there will be three of them. They are poor, begging for job, that's the way businessmen think and save on dosimeters and protective gears and are not very obsessed with these gamma thing.
Tamesu San
@Johannes Weber
"The discussion is waged on an unscientific level. If the dosimeters and Geiger counters reported a gamma exposure of 2 mSv that is really not a big deal. However, anybody assuming that safety standards are properly maintained at Fukushima Daiichi and that there is no significant amount of alpha emitters around is just plainly naive (or stupid or probably both).
If this guy incorporated alpha emitters (like plutonium in solution in tiny water droplets in wet air), then he had been on a certain downward path towards a painful death. Due to the fact that I know how carelessly many Japanese people treat their own safety and health, this is the most probable reason for his demise.
How on earth could anyone be so stupid to look at the gamma dose only? It enrages me as a nuclear physicist to read things like this! More clear indications of whitewashing and unprofessional handling of the accident!"
MANY THANKS
please keep us advised especially in the case of discussions by JT on Tokyo's levels of such exposure information etc.
again many thanks!
Jared Norman
This is twice the amount of radiation that you get from the sun everyday it's not enough to kill you.
pawatan
Why am I not surprised that everyone is speculating wildly about how this poor worker died when no facts at all are known? I could have been radiation related, but it could have been heart related, or stress, or any number of other things. Maybe he's a heavy drinker or is in poor shape. It's stupid to speculate before any actual facts are known.
Johannes Weber
Facts about the toxicity of plutonium are controversial (this quotes wikipedia, so freely accessible for all):
Johannes Weber
German wikipedia has a somewhat stricter opinion, which I translate as:
The radioactivity, which can cause cancer is by far more dangerous than the chemical effects. Even the inhalation of 40 nanograms of 239Pu is sufficient to reach the yearly activity inhalation limit for workers [Remark: German laws are stricter than American laws.] This amount is so tiny that plutonium's toxicity doesn't even come into effect. An amount of a few micrograms is presumably sufficient for certain development of cancer.
Before the cancers kick in, it should normally take a few years. Nevertheless, the internal dose is not registered with the usual dosimerers and Geiger counters. With the damaged fuel pools and fuel rods, which are scattered in pieces in the entire area, internal dose is almost unavoidable in my opinion. They should be able to detect this, if they really do research. The alpha emmiters should still remain in the tissue, which could be tested with an detector specialized for alpha radiation.
kurisupisu
Working in a highly radioactive environment it is highly probable that a death will be caused by radiation at some point.
In such a case, could we expect Tepco to attribute the cause to acute radiation poisoning?
tmtmsnb
You can see the trend where people consider the whole thing a "national disgrace"---the less washed in public the better, thus the wholesale coverup, downplay or disinformation campaign, not only by public officials but also by private citizens (who is not, of course, direct victims of the disaster.)
Tahoochi
Bottom line: Any death of a worker at a TEPCO plant in Fukushima will be under intense scrutiny/suspicion for obvious historical reasons.
Elbuda Mexicano
Scary but this is probably only the tip of the iceberg, only this death at Dai Ichi nuclear power plant??
Stanley52
Just standing on a unnoticed small hot spot too long could be sufficient. Remember, radiation dose decreases square to the distance. His feet could have been irradiated enough to make some cells turn malignant, while the dosimeter at the chest registers only marginal dose (if turned on).
Johannes Weber
@ Zichi:
That is not very easy to say definitely. Wikipedia has a nice table here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acute_radiation_syndrome.
As You can see there, they always give an interval of radiation dose and a mortalitiy rate with and without care. And a time span. Thus, we'd be by between 1 and 6 Sv (Gy) of radiation dose that would lead to potential mortality in four to eight weeks. These radiation doses are not very hard to receive if the risk of inhalation of alpha emitters is prevalent. We don't know how much of the actual radioactive inventory actually got out in the various explosions.
Furthermore, we do not know much about this worker: did he get lectured correctly about the dangers and risks of radiation (otherwise it is death through voluntary negligence)? Did he and his supervisors enforce safety measures (in this case it might be involuntary negligence)? Did he maybe just incorporate once a large amount and started to wither away (which might be due to something TEPCO is only indirectly responsible)? Did he incorporate the radiation because of deliberate disregard for safety rules (which would relieve TEPCO of most of its responsibility in his case)? Did he have health problems before he started to work in Fukushima so that he shouldn't have gone into such an environment?
We don't know these answers. We don't know where to put the blame. But we know that TEPCO lied in the past. It it more probable that they lie now than that they tell the truth. We will probably never know the truth.
valley-of-the-shadows
Three workers dead at a crumbled nuclear power plant and they are not related to radiation. I wonder what odds the bookmakers would give on that!
nath
No no! It's not due to radiation! 3 deaths at one facility per year is normal! Pssh! Yeah, right. Stupid TEPCO.
Ranger_Miffy2
How about a violation of my rights as a human being living on this island? Come clean, TEPCO...
Utrack
Like TEPCO would say, Yeah this worker was standing in a Hotspot near the plant while smoking a cigarette two weeks ago and he got a lethal dose in ten minutes so he died. may he RIP.
If this had happened I doubt if TEPCO would say so.
Kamala Brown-Sparks
First of all, I don't believe TEPCO about how much radiation this man was exposed to. Second, a 46 yr old man dies from leukemia and they don't think it has anything to do with his exposure to radiation,REALLY??? After all of the lies TEPCO has been telling, and that's the best they could come up with. I'm pretty sure that the protagonist in the book about the 1,000 cranes died from leukemia too.
Azreal
Well this is no surprise hehe.
Utrack
New safety rules for outdoor nuclear workers
Excerpt: Japan's health ministry will introduce safety guidelines to protect workers who clean up radioactive substances around the disabled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
Existing guidelines target only those working indoors at the plant.
Citizens groups had complained that the ministry was not doing enough to minimize the exposure of workers who engage in decontamination outdoors.
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/07_26.html
Is this a coincidence or what.
lordmanji
Let me just say what everyone else is thinking: if a nuclear plant worker can die while just working at the plant for days, then for those that live further away where the contamination spread more diffusely, are risking a slower fate.
Utrack
What's the standard level of cesium for beaches?
Utrack
Mudslides from that area are going to be toxic.
13akio13
on 239 refer to Linus Pauling, He stopped nuclear testing. in the atmosphere. I'm sure the poor man died from radiation, but like everything else in Japan they will sweep it under the rug. If this type of energy is all the nuclear engineers and nuclear physicist can give us they have to find a new job they are worthless in the modern world. The only other things the IDOTS have given us is the Atomic Bomb. We have to fire them all and let them go in and clean up the mess they made with a paper suit to protect themselves. They are the idiots that say paper will protect you or a piece of cotton.
whiskeysour
The total count of the workers killed by raditation we will never known Never be known!!!!!
Really sad, the stress this guy was going through must have been incredible. The men who go there everyday since the earthquake began are HEROES.
I hope they are not hiring terminally ill people with a few months left, temporary workers with no health insurance provided by Tepco or homeless people. I am wondering are they still hiring homeless people or people really desperate for money working over there.
I pray for the people being exposed everyday to the radiation. If I was the PM, the workers who are exposed to radation are exempt from paying taxes forever. But that's just me.
oberst
male worker, in his 60s, died of a heart attack in May and another, in his 40s, succumbed to acute leukemia in August. TEPCO said both cases were not attributable to radiation..............................
acute leukemia ? I would not rule out radiation as possible cause so fast.
Christina O'Neill
Just a thought, it may be that this guys demise was not related to the radiation he absorbed, but no doubt in the future we will be hearing about the demise of frontline workers who because they remained at their posts and did their duty they paid the ultimate price. Whilst they have done this and continue to do so the TEPCO executive remain safely beyond the realms of major contamination. If I am conidered a fool for regarding this guy who died and all others who cotinue in their endeavours to bring the reactors under control as heroes then so be it
Nicky Washida
To be fair, and I hate TEPCO as much as the next man - acute leukaemia is not a particularly rare occurance in men around that age. I personally know of two men who had it, one who died from it.
HOWEVER - having said that neither of those two were working in a NPP shortly after a disaster, so while it could be a coincidence, its a pretty big one!
moobb
You can deny reality,…but you CAN NOT escape the consequences of a denied reality
142StanfordBinet
I'm afraid I don't accept the Wikipedia figures on Plutonium mortality. The information in Wikipedia has become the hostage of whatever industry group can hire the most people to plant disinformation.
I once spent a month trying to add information to the entry on Chernobyl. The European Union has done a study that concluded 1,000,000 people so far have died prematurely from cancers and other diseases such as Chernobyl Heart caused by the Chernobyl fallout. Within the hour that I posted it, pro-nuclear people had edited out. After a month of trying to put it back in, I gave up.
The nuclear industry is also not afraid to make bold lies in support of nuclear power. One of the most common is the idea of a "safe" threshold. One of the entries above mentions 400 milliseverts. The truth is that the National Academy of Sciences in the U.S. has determined that there is NO safe dose. Every exposure causes additional death and disease.