Yesterday, TEPCO sent 9 workers into Fukushima reactor No. 3 to spray a foam over the facility. NHK reports that all 9 workers had to be quickly withdrawn from the reactor after only 20 minutes due to receiving more than 100 millisieverts of radiation/ hour, over 20 times the maximum limit of 5 millisieverts/ hour. In a separate report, one of these 9 workers was found unconscious in his dorm this morning, and is being air-flighted to a local hospital. In response, TEPCO has again ceased all activity at reactor No. 3.
Unfortunately, the end of this crisis (or even any form of improvement) is nowhere in sight.
From NHK:
The operator of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant says radiation levels in one of the reactor buildings remain too high for workers to do their jobs.
Tokyo Electric Power Company, or TEPCO, sent 9 workers into the No.3 reactor building for about 20 minutes on Thursday, in a bid to start stabilizing the reactor.
The utility plans to inject nitrogen gas into the containment vessel to prevent accumulated hydrogen from causing an explosion. It also intends to install a system to cool the reactor with circulating water.
The workers withdrew after measuring radiation of 100 millisieverts per hour near the reactor's containment vessel.
TEPCO says it intended to limit the workers' exposure to below 5 millisieverts per hour. But as all 9 received higher doses, it has suspended work while considering a course of action.
