Four workers working at the mining site of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi power plant, northeastern Japan, were sprayed with water containing radioactive substances and two of them had to be taken to hospital as a precaution, a manager said on Friday.
A total of five workers were cleaning pipes of the ALPS filtration system used to treat water from the damaged power plant during the March 11, 2011 disaster when a pipe accidentally came loose, splashing two people, a spokesman told AFP Tepco, the operator the plant.
Two other workers were infected while cleaning up the damage, the spokesman added.
The radiation levels measured in the two hospitalized men were above the limit considered harmless.
The likelihood that both men would have suffered burns from radiation exposure was assessed by a doctor as low, Tepco said.
“We have been informed that the condition of the two employees treated at the hospital is stable,” the spokesman said, adding that they “will remain in the hospital for approximately two weeks for follow-up examinations.”
TEPCO is investigating the circumstances of the accident and examining measures to prevent a repeat, he added.
At the end of August, the plant operator began discharging the water, which came in particular from the injections necessary to cool the reactors of the Fukushima nuclear power plant after the gigantic tsunami of 2011, into the Pacific Ocean after treatment and dilution.
The second phase of the release, which will be carried out gradually and according to the current schedule will last until the early 2050s, was completed this week.
This process has been validated by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Tokyo ensures that it is safe for the environment and human health.
This water was treated using the ALPS (“Advanced Liquid Treatment System”) system to remove radioactive substances, with the exception of tritium, a radionuclide that experts say is only dangerous in very high concentrations.
For this reason, before evacuation to the Pacific Ocean, this water is diluted with seawater so that its radioactivity level does not exceed the target maximum level of 1500 Bq/L, that is, a level 40 times lower than the Japanese standard for this type of operation .
In total, Japan plans to release more than 1.3 million m3 of tritiated water from Fukushima into the sea – the equivalent of 540 Olympic swimming pools.