As a reward for their efforts, the Japanese government has awarded the Fukushima 50 an increased allowance of their radiation exposure.
http://www.seattlepi.com/...
...Yet on Wednesday, Japan's Ministry of Health Labor and Welfare raised the maximum legal exposure for nuclear workers to 250 millisieverts from 100 millisieverts. It described the move as "unavoidable due to the circumstances..."
The scenario in Japan remains critical. The government has gone from reporting "no signigificant threat" to "no serious threat" to "no acute threat" to public health within hours.
One doesn't have to look hard between the lines to find the unspoken "yet."
How governments (theirs and ours) can manage to downplay the seriousness of the nuclear incident in Japan is a bit mind-boggling. (Though we have witnessed similar denials and inaction in the face of Katrina and the recent Gulf Oil Spill.)
We have a nuclear complex at Fukushima that has in the past several days undergone explosions and fires at four of its reactors. Other nuclear factilities are reported to be "having problems.
Folks in charge are walking a tightrope between keeping the reactors and the spent-fuel pools cool and keeping workers safe.
We don't know how many days/weeks/months/years of fallout from the earthquake/tsunami/vulnerable infrastructure are left for the people of Japan and the people of the planet to endure.
Yet we do know that 30-80% of at least two core reactors, #1 and #3, are reportedly "exposed" and one spent-fuel rod pool of an "inactive" reactor, #4, has experienced at least "minor explosions" and two fires.
The concrete outer containment structures on four of the reactors have been breached. The spent-fuel pools of reactors #1, #2, and #3 lie somewhere in the rubble.
Also from Seattle pi Asia (same link as above):
...The workers' challenges this week have included struggling for hours to open a pressure-release valve and allow water to enter the reactors. When a worker left the scene for a short period, the water flow ceased and fuel for pumps bringing up the water ran out.
A building housing a spent fuel storage pool exploded Tuesday, making two huge holes on the upper side of the wall on the building. A plant worker spotted a fire shortly thereafter that was later put out.
The workers also have had to walk around the area to measure radioactivity in each place where they were supposed to enter, and remove contaminated debris.
"Workers persevere amid fears of 400 millisieverts," read one headline in the nationally circulated Yomiuri newspaper.
The newspaper said one male worker who was opening a valve to let out built-up steam was hospitalized after complaining of nausea and exhaustion after being exposed for 10 minutes of radiation, despite wearing head-to-toe protective gear and a mask...
Yes, these folks are sacrificing themselves for the good of others. And yes, we appreciate them. They must be operating from a high sense mission and purpose. They must know what the risks are and are doing this job because they know they are truly needed at this time.
And if we fail to learn from this experience, if we fail to act more responsibly with planet earth and its people, if we continue to build nuclear facilities with nothing but water and electricity between containment and disaster and little thought of waste disposal...then many will end up paying the consequences, not just the front-line workers, but all of us.
We all depend on a healthy food chain, healthy air, healthy water. Our homeland security threats beyond where the current focus lies.