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Posted on 03/15/2011 5:20:23 PM PDT by Eyes Unclouded
Since the disaster struck in Japan, about 800 workers have been evacuated from the damaged nuclear complex in Fukushima. The radiation danger is that great.
However, CBS News correspondent Jim Axelrod reports that a handful have stayed on the job, risking their lives, to try to save the lives of countless people they don't even know.
Although communication with the workers inside the nuclear plant is nearly impossible, a CBS News consultant spoke to a Japanese official who made contact with one of the 50 inside the control center.
The official said that his friend, one of the Fukushima 50, told him that he was not afraid to die, that that was his job.
Cham Dallas, who led teams responding to the Chernobyl disaster, said that kind of response is not out of the normal for some workers in the nuclear energy sector.
"(In) my experience of people in the action area of nuclear power is much like that," Dallas said.
The 50 are working amid decreasing but still dangerously high levels of radiation.
"The longer they stay the more dangerous it becomes for them," said expert Margaret Harding. "I think it is a testament to their guts for them to say, 'We'll stay and if that means we go, we go.'"
If the contamination threat isn't contained in a few weeks, finding enough workers willing to face the risks could become a crucial challenge.
Dallas said he expects that in that scenario, the Japanese energy authorities may have to find volunteers willing to undergo similar dangers, which will be hard to do, but not impossible.
Keep in mind they'd be volunteering to head into a place so potentially dangerous, that anyone within 20 miles of it was just asked to evacuate.
Heros come in all shapes, sizes and professions.
True.
Some of these kamikaze nuclear workers will die from radiation. No Japanese civilians will -— my prediction
Actually, they are their grandchildren.
50 Japanese “Mr. Spocks” as in “The Wrath of Kahn”. Brave men deserving of our highest respect.
This people are allready heros.
Japan should build a monument for every single one of them.
(Because i fear they will have to pay the ultimate price for their heroic deeds)
bttt
Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
John 15:13
God bless you. The job must be done.
Four more of the workers are missing since the fire in reactor #4 this afternoon.
These individuals are nothing short of Japanese national heros.
Even cops, sometimes, my FRiend. :-)
But that's besides the point here.
So true.
An estimated 70 percent of the nuclear fuel rods have been damaged at the troubled No. 1 reactor of the Fukushima No.1 nuclear power plant and 33 percent at the No. 2 reactor, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Wednesday.
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