Japan Press Weekly

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2012 July 18 - 24 [NUCLEAR CRISIS]

Work without APD at Fukushima Daiichi neglects human rights

Many workers have been tackling the nuclear crisis without wearing alarm pocket dosimeters (APD) at TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi plant while a total of 950 APDs have been left unused.

The revelation came out in a report released by a government accident investigative panel on July 23.

The report reveals that in spite of the obligation for all nuclear-plant workers to wear APDs, only the supervisors of the workers were able to use the APDs due to an alleged APD shortage.

According to the investigation, the 3.11 tsunami damaged all the 5,000 APDs at the Fukushima Daiichi, so the plant then received about 1,450 APDs from other plants, but the TEPCO staff mistakenly left them in a warehouse.

The report states, “It must be said that TEPCO employees had little awareness of the need to protect on-site workers from exposure to radiation.”