Fukushima news

[Bennyboy]

Meet The Underpaid, Overexposed 'Liquidators' Of Fukushima


Worldcrunch.com / LE MONDE

IWAKI — Our meeting with one of the “liquidators” of Fukushima’s power plant takes place in a discreet location, out of sight. Talking to journalists is risky, and the man's nervous employers could use it as a pretext to fire him.

“It’s the same thing for workplace accidents — there’s a collective solidarity,” he says. “If it isn’t too serious, we hide them to avoid problems with the social insurance.”

He is one of the liquidators in charge of securing and dismantling the site. In his thirties, he was working for a subcontractor at the power plant when the accident occurred, following the March 11, 2011 tsunami. Then, his company’s contract was not extended. He just started working on the site again. “The workers' situation has gotten better when it comes to security, but wages have gone down and there are fewer and fewer qualified people,” he says, asking to remain anonymous.

“The quality of work is mediocre because the management asks us to work fast, but the guys aren’t experienced enough,” explains the supervisor of a radioactivity inspection company, in charge of about 50 workers. “Sometimes they don’t even know the names of the tools. The teams often change. There’s a mandatory rotation because workers who have received the maximum radiation exposure must leave the zone. But others leave prematurely because they think they're not paid enough. If we don’t manage to form a qualified and trustworthy team quickly, we won’t be able to work fast and efficiently. We even lack qualified team supervisors.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/17/fukushima-liquidators_n_4113992.html