Radiation exposure levels near limit for 2 Fukushima nuke workers

TOKYO, April 30 Kyodo -
As the nuclear crisis continues at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant, two workers, who were previously hospitalized for possible radiation burns, turned out Saturday to have been exposed to radiation levels close to the limit of 250 millisieverts while seven women in affected areas were found with slightly contaminated breast milk.
Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said the two workers have been exposed to 240.8 millisieverts and 226.6 millisieverts of radiation, respectively, when internal exposure is taken into account, among 21 workers exposed to over 100 millisieverts of external radiation since the crisis erupted following the March 11 quake and tsunami.
Under Japanese law, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare has limited by an ordinance radiation exposure of each nuclear plant worker at 100 millisieverts a year in an emergency situation, but raised the limit to 250 millisieverts to cope with the Fukushima crisis on March 15.
The two were hospitalized for possible radiation burns to their feet after standing in water that contained radioactive materials 10,000 times the normal level while laying a cable underground at the troubled plant on March 24, the utility known as TEPCO said.
The latest revelation came after the firm checked internal exposure of the 21 workers.
The one exposed to a total of 240.8 milisieverts was externally exposed to 201.8 millisieverts of radiation and 39 millisieverts internally, it said, adding eight other workers were exposed to a total of 150-200 millisieverts and the remaining 11 were exposed to 100-150 millisieverts.
On Wednesday, the utility said one of its female employees at the plant was exposed to radiation doses far above the legal limit for female workers of 5 millisieverts over a three-month period. She was exposed to 17.55 millisieverts of radiation by March 23.
The health ministry said the same day its survey of breast milk on 23 women in Tokyo and four prefectures, including Fukushima and its neighboring Ibaraki, found 2.2 to 8.0 becquerels of radioactive substances per kilogram in seven of them but that the amounts pose no health risks to their babies.
Of the seven, 3.5 becquerels of iodine and 2.4 becquerels of cesium were detected in milk taken from one who lived within 30 kilometers from the nuclear plant until March 14 after the March 11 quake and tsunami triggered the crisis there.
The others comprise five residents of Ibaraki and one of Chiba prefectures.
Samples of milk were taken from the women in their 20s to 30s at obstetric clinics over the five days through Thursday in response to a civic group's announcement on April 20 that 36.3 becquerels of iodine was found in breast milk of a woman in Chiba Prefecture.
Located on the Pacific coast some 220 km from Tokyo, the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station has spewed radioactive materials, causing concerns about human health in the prefecture and other northeastern and eastern Japan prefectures.
The amount of iodine contaminating the sea is expected to fall to the undetectable level of below 10 becquerels per liter by early May and that of cesium by early June, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology said based on supercomputer simulations.