Radioactivity measured in nose of Fukushima employee

Radioactive material may have touched an employee’s face when he removed a mask on Monday.
Photo: Ap/ritzau Scanpix
Photo: Ap/ritzau Scanpix
by RITZAU

Radioactivity has been measured in the nose of an employee at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan, according to the country’s authorities, AFP news agency reports.

Radioactive material may have touched the man’s face when he removed a mask on Monday as he finished his work.

The man has not experienced any adverse health effects. A body scan showed no contamination in his body. The final results will be available next month.

This is the second incident of its kind in three months, after four employees were sprayed with radioactive water in October. Two of them are hospitalized as a precautionary measure.

An earthquake in 2011 created a tsunami that destroyed the Japanese power plant.

Since then, cleanup work has been ongoing. This means, among other things, that huge amounts of wastewater must be discharged into the sea around Japan.

The first discharge took place on August 24. Here, Japan discharged part of the 1.34 million tons of wastewater that has accumulated since the devastation in 2011.

This is equivalent to the contents of 540 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

Over a decade after the disaster, the cleanup continues because Japan has run out of space for the water that cools the reactors.

According to most experts, the water has been filtered to such a degree that it is completely safe. Japan and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) also consider the release safe.

However, it has caused a stir in China, which is a major opponent of the discharge.

For example, China has banned the sale of Japanese fish.

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