2011/03/20
In a second-floor room of Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s main office in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward, about 100 people watch the events unfold on a large screen.
What they are witnessing is every operation at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant to cool reactor cores, keep spent fuel rods submerged and bring much needed power to the crippled facility.
"I feel like crying as I see the harsh conditions facing my colleagues at the site," said a TEPCO employee in the room.
Of the 800 workers at the plant when the Great East Japan Earthquake struck on March 11, 750 left on Tuesday after a fire broke out at the No. 4 reactor.
The remaining 50 members stayed amid the ever-present danger of high radiation levels to try to bring the situation under control and prevent a meltdown.
They were dubbed the "Fukushima 50" by U.S. and European media.
"They are the faceless 50, unnamed operators who stayed behind," The New York Times said.
But they have been increasingly receiving help.
The workers on the front line of the battle include employees of TEPCO and subsidiaries Toden Kogyo Co. and Tokyo Electric Power Environmental Engineering Co., as well as employees from Toshiba Corp. and Hitachi Ltd., which constructed the power plant.
Workers from the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant in Niigata Prefecture and other places have joined them in the operation.
By Friday morning, about 580 workers were at the site, including those installing cables to bring electricity to the site.
The workers wear full-body protective suits and masks. Everyone wears a dosimeter around the clock to measure radiation levels. The device sets off an alarm if radiation doses reach 80 percent of the maximum allowable daily limit.
The workers take turns performing such laborious tasks as injecting water into the reactors and storage pools and opening valves to relieve pressure in the container.
Scattered debris from the explosion of a building covering one of the reactors has hampered their work.
And dangerous radiation levels have on occasion forced the workers to retreat from the reactors.
Some of the workers have now been reassigned to deal with potential problems at the No. 5 and No. 6 reactors.
The efforts have taken their toll.
More than 20 workers at the site have been injured since the quake and tsunami struck on March 11. One worker was seriously injured when he opened a valve to release steam from the containment vessel.
The local task force for TEPCO's nuclear plants in Fukushima Prefecture is stationed at a earthquake-resistant building in the mountainside.
The task force is in constant contact with TEPCO's emergency headquarters in Tokyo. The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency has its office in a separate room of the same building.
In the headquarters, TEPCO President Masataka Shimizu sits at a round table in the center of the room. Workers in charge of restoration and measuring operations sit at desks surrounding the round table.
They have noticed that some pressure meters and water-level gauges in the pressure and containment vessels are no longer functioning.
"I am thinking what we should do, recalling what happened at Three Mile Island (in 1979) and the (1986) Chernobyl nuclear disaster," a TEPCO senior official said.
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