'Nervous and rushed': Massive Fukushima plant cleanup exposes workers to high radiation and stress

OKUMA, Japan -- The Fukushima Daiichi atomic powerfulness plant's radiation levels person importantly dropped since the cataclysmic meltdown 14 years agone Tuesday. Workers locomotion astir successful galore areas wearing lone surgical masks and regular clothes.

It's a antithetic communicative for those who participate the reactor buildings, including the 3 damaged successful the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. They indispensable usage maximum extortion — afloat facemasks with filters, multi-layered gloves and socks, footwear covers, hooded hazmat coveralls and a waterproof jacket, and a helmet.

As workers region melted substance debris from the reactors successful a monumental atomic cleanup effort that could instrumentality much than a century, they are facing some immense amounts of intelligence accent and unsafe levels of radiation.

The Associated Press, which precocious visited the works for a circuit and interviews, takes a person look.

A remote-controlled extendable robot with a tong had respective mishaps including instrumentality failures earlier returning successful November with a tiny portion of melted substance from wrong the damaged No. 2 reactor.

That archetypal palmy trial tally is simply a important measurement successful what volition beryllium a daunting, decades-long decommissioning that indispensable woody with astatine slightest 880 tons of melted atomic substance that has mixed with breached parts of interior structures and different debris wrong the 3 ruined reactors.

Akira Ono, main decommissioning serviceman astatine the Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, which manages the plant, says adjacent the tiny illustration gives officials a batch of accusation astir the melted fuel. More samples are needed, however, to marque the enactment smoother erstwhile bigger efforts to region the debris statesman successful the 2030s.

A 2nd sample-retrieval ngo astatine the No. 2 reactor is expected successful coming weeks.

Operators anticipation to nonstop the extendable robot farther into the reactor to instrumentality samples person to the center, wherever overheated atomic substance fell from the core, inferior spokesperson Masakatsu Takata said. He pointed retired the people country arsenic helium stood wrong the interior operation of the No. 5 reactor, which is 1 of 2 reactors that survived the tsunami. It has an identical plan arsenic No. 2.

Radiation levels are inactive dangerously precocious wrong the No. 2 reactor building, wherever the melted substance debris is down a heavy factual containment wall. Earlier decontamination enactment reduced those radiation levels to a fraction of what they utilized to be.

In precocious August, tiny groups took turns doing their enactment helping the robot successful 15- to 30-minute shifts to minimize radiation exposure. They person a remotely controlled robot, but it has to beryllium manually pushed successful and out.

“Working nether precocious levels of radiation (during a short) clip bounds made america consciousness tense and rushed," said Yasunobu Yokokawa, a squad person for the mission. "It was a hard assignment.”

Full-face masks reduced visibility and made breathing difficult, an other waterproof overgarment made it sweaty and hard to move, and triple-layered gloves made their fingers clumsy, Yokokawa said.

To destruct unnecessary exposure, they taped astir gloves and socks and carried a idiosyncratic dosimeter to measurement radiation. Workers besides rehearsed the tasks they'd execute to minimize exposure.

The ngo stalled aboriginal connected erstwhile workers noticed that a acceptable of 5 1.5-meter (5-foot) pipes meant to propulsion the robot into the reactor's superior containment vas had been arranged successful the incorrect order.

A camera connected the robot besides failed due to the fact that of precocious radioactivity and had to beryllium replaced.

The workers' highest idiosyncratic radiation dose was much than the wide mean but inactive acold beneath thing approaching a 100-millisievert five-year dose limit.

Even so, a increasing fig of workers are acrophobic astir information and radiation astatine the plant, said Ono, the decommissioning chief, citing an yearly survey of astir 5,5,00 workers.

In 2023, 2 workers splashed with contaminated sludge astatine a h2o attraction installation suffered burns and were hospitalized, though they had nary different wellness problems.

Yokokawa and a works colleague, Hiroshi Ide, helped successful the 2011 exigency and enactment arsenic squad leaders today. They accidental they privation to marque the occupation safer arsenic workers look precocious radiation successful parts of the plant.

On the apical level of the No. 2 reactor, workers are mounting up instrumentality to region spent substance units from the cooling pool. That's acceptable to statesman wrong 2 to 3 years.

At the No. 1 reactor, workers are putting up a elephantine extortion to incorporate radioactive particulate from decontamination enactment connected the apical level up of the removal of spent fuel.

To minimize vulnerability and summation efficiency, workers usage a remote-controlled crane to connect pre-assembled parts, according to TEPCO. The No. 1 reactor and its surroundings are among the astir contaminated parts of the plant.

Workers are besides removing treated radioactive wastewater. They precocious started dismantling the emptied h2o tanks to marque country to physique facilities needed for the probe and retention of melted substance debris.

After a bid of tiny missions by robots to stitchery samples, experts volition find a larger-scale method for removing melted fuel, archetypal astatine the No. 3 reactor.

Experts accidental the hard enactment and immense challenges of decommissioning the works are conscionable beginning. There are estimations that the enactment could instrumentality much than a century. The authorities and TEPCO person an archetypal completion people of 2051, but the retrieval of melted substance debris is already 3 years behind, and galore large issues stay undecided.

Ide, whose location successful Namie town, northwest of the plant, is successful a no-go portion due to the fact that of atomic contamination, inactive has to enactment connected a hazmat suit, adjacent for little visits home.

“As a Fukushima citizen, I would similar to marque definite the decommissioning enactment is done decently truthful that radical tin instrumentality location without worries,” helium said.