30/03 Workers face incredible risk with little food

The Yomiuri Shimbun

Working in close proximity to dangerously high levels of radiation, hundreds of workers are feverishly trying to stabilize the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant amid brutal living conditions: only two meals a day and sleeping packed together with just one blanket each.

Kazuma Yokota, chief of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency's Fukushima office that is in charge of inspections at the facility, told a press conference Monday what the workers' lives are like, based on the five days he spent as an observer at the nuclear plant last week.

About 450 employees of plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. and companies helping with the crisis were working in unpredictable conditions to prevent a catastrophe, according to TEPCO.

Yokota, 39, gave the nation its first glimpse at the tough conditions the workers are enduring as they put their lives at risk. He stayed from Tuesday to Saturday at the plant's emergency office, which is housed in an earthquake-resistant building. The room is being used as a command center, dining room and bedroom for the workers. The two-story specially built structure was completed in July, TEPCO said.

When an explosion occurred in the No. 2 reactor on March 15, there were about 800 workers, including nuclear specialists, in the quake-resistant building. All but about 50 who were in charge of supplying water to the reactors were quickly evacuated and did not return for several days. Currently, however, anywhere from 270 to 580 people are in the building at any given time, Yokota said.

He said the workers hold a meeting every morning to review the conditions at the reactors and their jobs for the day. Work is usually from about 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Afterward, they return to the quake-resistant building for dinner and sleep. While most go to bed about 10 p.m., those on the night shift stay up monitoring machinery readings until morning, he said.

For the day's first meal, each worker gets two packages of about a dozen cookies and a small carton of vegetable juice. Dinner consists of specially processed rice with vegetables or dried curry, plus a can of chicken, tuna or other meat, Yokota said.

Since each worker is limited to 1.5 liters of water a day, they use alcohol instead of water to wash their hands and are unable to bathe, he said. A change of clothes is also rare.

Although plans are in the works to get the workers more food and other needed items, bringing in supplies by helicopter is impossible because of the high levels of radiation around the nuclear complex. So far, TEPCO has carried in supplies on sporadic buses, according to Yokota.

"Right after the accident, we were getting by on just dried bread," one senior TEPCO employee who has been staying at the plant said. "Since we were working with hardly any sleep, we got so exhausted we could hardly chew the stuff. Everyone was just dreaming of a good cup of tea."

Another TEPCO official at the press conference said the room where the workers eat and sleep cannot be ventilated because of the high levels of radiation outside the building, and that the workers must wear masks at all times, even indoors, to protect themselves.

(Mar. 30, 2011)