Recent days have seen the easing of evacuation orders and an IAEA mission dispatched to assist with remediation of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant accident in Japan.
Developments this week include:
Evacuation Order Lifted in Some Areas
On Sept. 30, the Japanese government lifted an evacuation advisory affecting five municipalities near the plant, allowing about 59,000 evacuees to return home. The New York Times reported as many as half of those had returned already to areas near the 12-mile exclusion zone that remains in place.
Radiation remains a concern in many places outside the ongoing evacuation area, and the Times reported measurements of 0.51 microsieverts per hour recorded at a hospital in Minamisoma. If that amount remained constant, the resulting dose would equal 4.5 millisieverts per year, well below the 50 millisievert yearly limit for U.S. nuclear workers but above the 1 millisievert-per-year limit advised for the general public by the International Commission on Radiological Protection.
Worker Dies
Tokyo Electric Power Co. reported a worker in his 50s died Thursday, but it is unlikely that conditions at the plant contributed his death. Japan Today reported the man had worked at Fukushima for 46 days installing a tank that is part of a water treatment system. In that time, he had accumulated a dose of 2.02 millisieverts, which is well below levels correlated with cancer risk.
Four other workers have died at Fukushima since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that blacked out the plant. Two men died as a result of the tsunami, and two died of health problems TEPCO said were unrelated to their work.
IAEA Sends Experts to Japan
On Tuesday, the International Atomic Energy Agency announced plans to send 12 experts to Japan over the next week. They will be led by Juan Carlos Lentijo, a leader in Spain’s nuclear regulatory body, and aim to help Japan plan its remediation efforts and to gather information for the international community.