WORKERS AT Japan’s stricken nuclear plant are reportedly being offered huge sums to brave high radiation and bring its overheated reactors under control.
The claims come as plant operator Tokyo Electric Power battles to stop a spreading contamination crisis.
Radiation has already found its way into milk, vegetables and tapwater and is leaking into the sea around the complex.
Government tests found yesterday that small quantities of plutonium, one of the world’s most dangerous elements, had seeped into soil outside the plant.
State broadcaster NHK says underground tunnels linked to reactors 1,2 and 3 are flooded with water containing radiation, measured in some spots at a highly dangerous 1,000 millisieverts an hour.
Workers in protective gear are shoring up the tunnel shafts with sandbags to stop the water, which reportedly contains concentrations of long-lived cesium-137, seeping into the sea about 55 to 70 metres away.
Japan’s Nuclear Safety Agency said the plutonium was “not at levels harmful to human health”, but the government’s chief spokesman, Yukio Edano, called the situation “very grave” and confirmed fears that at least one reactor had suffered a partial meltdown. “There is a high possibility that there has been at least some melting of the fuel rods.”
The admission added to pressure on prime minister Naoto Kan to widen an exclusion zone around the plant, possibly forcing another 130,000 people to evacuate. Yesterday a tired-looking Mr Kan faced withering criticism from opposition deputies, who called him “irresponsible” and “incompetent”. He told parliament his government faced Japan’s biggest crisis in decades. “From now on, we will continue to handle it in a state of maximum alert.”
Engineers at the Fukushima Daiichi complex struggling to restart cooling systems for reactors are being hampered by the radiation and lack of electricity, forcing them to work in the dark and regularly withdraw.
Subcontractors to several companies connected to the plant have reportedly been offering 80,000- 100,000 yen a day (€690-€862) to join the operation, according to one former plant worker.
“They know it’s dangerous so they have to pay up to 20 times what they usually do,” said Shingo Kanno, a seasonal farmer and construction worker who was offered work at the complex by a subcontractor but refused. “My wife and family are against it because it’s so dangerous,” he said.
The men inside the complex have been dubbed “samurai” and “suicide” squads in the popular press. They have been joined by self-defence force troops and an elite team of fire and emergency service workers, who have used hoses, water canon and helicopters in a bid to cool the reactors.