The truth about ’nuclear samurai’

Workers at Fukushima's nuclear plant are risking their lives to avert catastrophe, but many are manual labourers unequal to the task

The truth about 'nuclear samurai'

Workers at Fukushima's nuclear plant are risking their lives to avert catastrophe, but many are manual labourers unequal to the task

Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) vice-president Norio Tsuzumi bows and apologises to an elderly woman who was evacuated from the Fukushima nuclear power plant

A tobacco farmer, Kanno had no business being anywhere near a nuclear reactor let alone in a situation as serious as the one that has unfolded after the 11 March earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

His great-uncle, Masao Kanno, said, "People are calling them nuclear samurai because people are sacrificing their lives to try to fix a leak. But people like Shingo are amateurs: they can't really help. It shouldn't be people like Shingo."

Masao Kanno is one of more than 500 people camped out on the hardwood floors of a sports centre in Yonezawa. The homes of most of them lie within 19 miles of the Fukushima plant. They worked at the plant, have family members who did, or passed it daily on the way to work or school.

Before, they rarely thought about the down side to that proximity; now it rules their lives. Many of their homes are inside the evacuation zone, with radiation 17 times higher than background levels and tap water too contaminated to drink.
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Those with a close personal connection to the crisis, like Masao Kanno, are moved and grateful for the personal courage of the 500 or so workers still at the plant.

In the meantime, the cult of the nuclear samurai has only grown. Japanese television aired an interview with a plant worker offering a harrowing insider's account of the struggle for the reactors.

Mounting troubles
External power was restored to all six units at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility yesterday after it was rocked by two new quakes. Away from the plant, mounting evidence of radiation in vegetables, water and milk stirred concerns in Japan and abroad.

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