October 21, 2015
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2015 October 21 - 27 [LABOR]
Labor bureau recognizes Fukushima worker’s ill health as work-related |
This is the first time that labor authorities recognized as work-related the cancer or leukemia which workers contracted after working at the disabled power station. The Tomioka Labor Standards Inspection Office stated in the certificate that “there is no denying a relation between the worker’s disease and his exposure to radiation during his work assignment.”
According to the Labor Ministry, the man had been engaged in work such as covering the damaged reactor with panels between October 2012 and December 2013. The doses of radiation he was exposed to during that period total 15.7 mSv. Together with the period of time when he was working at other nuclear power plants, the worker had been exposed to a total of 19.8 mSv of radiation in one and a half years.
In January 2014, the man had a health problem and consulted a doctor. Diagnosed as leukemia, he applied for official recognition of his disease as work-related.
The Labor Ministry’s certification standards for work-caused accidents stipulate that if a worker develops leukemia after being exposed to more than 5 mSv a year and no other causes like virus infections can be found, his/her disease shall be recognized as work-related.
Labor inspection authorities are now examining four other similar applications from workers who worked at the Fukushima power station after the meltdown disaster in 2011. The number of applications of this kind is expected to increase from now on.
At present, nearly 7,000 workers are working at the Fukushima plant every day. The plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), said that the number of workers who were exposed to over 5 mSv of radiation a year at the complex was about 5,000 in 2012, 4,900 in 2013, and 6,600 in 2014.
Past related article:
> Radiation-exposed worker sues TEPCO [May 8, 2015]
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