http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20110316/NEWS/303160141/Japanese-nuclear-workers-like-suicide-fighters-war-
FUKUSHIMA, Japan — The 180 emergency workers at Japan's crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi complex are emerging as public heroes in the wake of a disaster spawned by an earthquake and a tsunami.
Facing the possibility of fire, explosions and radiation, the technicians were ordered back to work late Wednesday after a surge of radiation forced them to leave their posts for hours.
“I don't know any other way to say it, but this is like suicide fighters in a war,” said Keiichi Nakagawa, associate professor of the Department of Radiology at the University of Tokyo Hospital.
Small teams of the still-anonymous emergency workers rush in and out for 10 to 15 minutes at a time to pump sea water into the plant's overheated reactors, monitor them and clear debris from explosions. Any longer would make their exposure to radioactivity too great.
Even at normal times, workers wear coveralls, full-face masks with filters, helmets and double-layer gloves when they enter areas with a possibility of radiation exposure. Some of them carry oxygen tanks so they don't have to inhale any radioactive particles into their lungs.
The highest radiation reading among various locations that had to be accessed by the workers hit 600 millisieverts, equal to several years of daily exposure limit, according to statistics released by Tokyo Electric Power Co.
Many countries have an emergency limit of 100 millisieverts a year. Yet on Wednesday, Japan's Ministry of Health Labor and Welfare raised the maximum legal exposure for nuclear workers to 250 millisieverts. It described the move as “unavoidable due to the circumstances.”
The workers' challenges this week have included struggling for hours to open a pressure-release valve and allow water to enter the reactors. When a worker left the scene for a short period, the water flow ceased and fuel for pumps bringing up the water ran out.
A building housing a spent fuel storage pool exploded at one point, making two huge holes on the upper side of the building.