Another worker gets compensation for Fukushima-related illness

​In April this year I wrote a story about a man who was suing Fukushima Daichi nuclear power plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. after he developed leukaemia following a stint working at the crippled plant.

Japanese news sources are now reporting about another former worker at the plant who Japan's labor ministry also has certified as being eligible for work-related compensation after developing the same form of cancer due to radiation exposure.

This time the worker, also is in his 40s, is an employee of TEPCO who worked at the Fukushima plant for more than 19 years, including a 9-month period after the March 2011 nuclear accident.

According to the labor ministry the unnamed worker checked out damage from the quake-generated tsunami and injected cooling water into the No.1 and No.3 reactors during those 9 months.

The cores of those two reactors and one other went into meltdown after the plant lost all power sources following devastating earthquakes and tsunami that inundated the  facility.

The worker was exposed to just under 100 millisieverts of radiation, which the labor ministry says is sufficient to cause leukaemia. He was  diagnosed with the disease in February 2016.

He becomes the 4th Fukushima worker to be awarded compensation due to leukemia or thyroid cancer thought to have been directly related to undertaking containment work at the plant following the disasters. He also becomes the 14th nuclear plant worker since 1976 to gain official recognition by the health ministry having an illness that is directly related to his place of work. In my april story, the former worker said he believed there were many more, though their stories were never heard due to being paid off or other reasons.