Japan Press Weekly

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2011 June 15 - 21 [LABOR]

521 TEPCO subcontractors working at crippled nuclear power plant

TEPCO is using 521 subcontractors to work at the crippled Fukushima No.1 nuclear plant. Only 44 of them are directly contracted by TEPCO.

This was revealed in a document TEPCO submitted to the House of Councilors budget committee meeting on June 14 in response to the request made by Japanese Communist Party parliamentarian Tamura Tomoko.

At an Upper House budget committee meeting on May 20, Tamura pointed out that TEPCO does not even know how many companies are involved in the repair and recovery operations at the Fukushima plant. Prime Minister Kan Naoto promised her that he will instruct the company to submit the information to the Diet.

Among the subcontractors, 159 are companies in Fukushima and 146 are from Tokyo.

In its document, TEPCO also disclosed that as of May 31, only 3,700 out of 8,700 workers working at the Fukushima nuclear power plant have received a whole-body counter monitoring to measure their internal radiation exposure level.

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In response to JCP representative Tamura’s earlier question, the government on June 14 answered that it is difficult to find out how radiation detectors sent from foreign countries are being used since “it takes a lot of time to carry out research”.

According to its document, the government has received 39,842 radiation detectors from other nations, including 33,000 individual monitors and 3 germanium semiconductor detectors from the U.S., 5,075 individual monitors and 78 survey meters from Canada, as well as other devices from the U.K., France, Russia, and South Korea.