Monday, December 12, 2011

(UPDATED) Confirmed: A Decon Worker in Date City, Fukushima Found Dead in a Company Car at the Site

(UPDATE) Information from the TEPCO/government joint press conference online right now.

A 60-year-old worker doing the decontamination experiment in Shimo-Oguni District of Date City, Fukushima Prefecture was found dead by his co-workers inside the company car at 1:00PM on December 12. An ambulance was called, but he was confirmed dead at 2PM.

The decon work was the first in Shimo-Oguni District in Date City that was planned by the Cabinet Office and was being carried out by the Japan Atomic Energy Agency. The government spokesman didn't know the details of the worker, or the details of the decon work being done, or how long the worker had worked before he was found dead. Citizen volunteers were not involved in this decon project, as far as the spokesman knew.

No information about where the worker was from, or whether he had a pre-existing condition. The spokesman did say the government knows the cause of the death, but is talking to the family of the deceased as to whether it is appropriate to disclose the cause.

The spokesman was extremely uncomfortable when he tried to answer the question of the cause of the death. He managed to say the death was not during the decon work.


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The information was apparently disclosed by none other than Yasuhiro Sonoda, Cabinet Office official who drank Fuku-I water.

If a person died suddenly as he/she was doing the decontamination work in the area that produced rice with cesium far exceeding the national provisional safety limit, it has to be either the psychological stress in general and/or the pre-existing illness. Right? Right.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

TEPCO may say suicide due to mental stress from not "smiling and being Happy." Suicide is going to work for TEPCO and being exposed to high levels of radiation and being ignored..company first!

Anonymous said...

The fact that he died on site is a proof that the death wasn't radiation related. Radiation incapacitates you weeks before it kills you.

no6ody said...

Perhaps it was a combination of psych stress, a pre-existing illness, being 60 yrs old, and using all that high-tech decontamination gear-stuff like shovels and pickaxes.

Another casualty, another T3PC0 report--maybe it will say that the victim did not smile enough.

The govvie dude would not supply much info...
"It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself." Thomas Jefferson

Anonymous said...

How many dozens of people have already died at Fukushima? A lot of workers are unemployed folk rounded up from all over Japan with no family. They can be cremated and disappear like magic.
I get a kick out of, "The fact that he died on site is a proof that the death wasn't radiation related." Check out Chernobyl, Chucky!

Anonymous said...

He died from not smiling and believing baseless rumours...its lethal those unsmiling baseless rumours..

Andrew Spagnoli said...

Acute radiation sickness incapacitates. We are not dealing with that here. The dangers to the public and decon workers is different. Cesium accumulation in the heart muscle causes sudden cardiac problems, for example... and there are other ways to die suddenly after exposure (especially internal contamination) . That said, I also want to make a second point: suicides ARE victims. If this man DID kill himself he is no less of a victim of this nuclear crime. Ask yourself what you might do if your home, your family, your favorite places, your food and water, etc were deserted poisoned wastelands. Imagine the authorities keeping babies and children in areas just as poisoned as the evacuated ghost towns. Imagine that you are trying to cope with this new "life" and you are feeling fatigue, fighting colds, diarhea, nosebleeds and bruising that nevergo away. What might you do. I hope none of us are faced with that horror... but I also feel it is just a matter of time.

CaptD said...

Adding to what Andrew said above
ATOMIC RADIATION IS MORE HARMFUL TO WOMEN.pdf
http://is.gd/W7pqVF
and
A great link:
===>CHALLENGE: Whitewash that's Hogwash. Nuclear Power, Safety, the WHO & the IAEA

http://is.gd/Uq4GZN

Atomfritz said...

The spokesman's uncomfortability tells much. We can safely assume that the death circumstances aren't favorable for Tepco/the govt.

Maybe he left a goodbye letter, explaining much?

In any way, we can expect that they'll try to bribe the family to keep the thing secret.
If the family is in financial problems, as to be expected with displaced people, the chances are good that they'll stay quiet in turn for some pecuniary compensation.

This way Tepco coerces even their victims who have lost their income due to Fuku I and have no other choice than to clean up for a living the mess Tepco did.

Anonymous said...

Acute radiation sickness cause erections in males that can cause heart attacks if not treated...

Mike said...

I still regularly see comments in English-language publications to the effect that no one has died or been injured as a result of the Fukushima disaster. Of course, most injuries will appear over an extended period of years, and causation may be unclear. Still, casualties and sicknesses seem to be occurring now. Has anyone compiled a list of those who have died, reported cancers, and so on? It would be nice to be able to cite a real number.

Anonymous said...

Ex-skf must be the only place on the internet where people are cheering for a high death count. Pretty ghoulish if you ask me. There is so much radiation paranoia on this site that people are actually wishing for a high death count so that their paranoia is vindicated.

Anonymous said...

@anon at 1:53PM, looks like you have some English comprehension problem. "...the only place on the internet"? What a baseless rumor.

Report back to your employer that you've done the job for the day.

Mike said...

@anon at 1:53 --
No one here is "cheering for a high death count," least of all me. I'm just asking if anyone has compiled a list of the casualty reports which keep coming up. I'd rather rely on real data than the blanket denials from TEPCO, the government, and nuclear industry shills. If people believe those cavalier denials and do not take sensible precautions to avoid exposure, *that* ultimately will lead to a higher death count.

Anonymous said...

By discounting all the data coming from Tepco, the government, and the nuclear industry, I'm not sure where you are going to find your "real data", unless you count Twitter and the blogosphere as being real data.

@2:16 why is it that anyone who disagrees with the groupthink here is automatically labeled as a shill for the nuclear industry? Never mind, no need to answer. I think I already know.

Anonymous said...

@anon 2:50
If you'd been paying attention for the past nine months, you would realize that the information provided by TEPCO and the government has been admitted to be wrong, or demonstrated to be wrong, over and over and over again. TEPCO and the government have financial and political incentives to minimize the extent of the contamination and the risk, and have consistently done so, at the expense of the facts. We've seen the pattern repeated: general denial for months, then admission that earlier assurances were false, contamination is worse than reported, different parts of the plant failed, food already sold and consumed was adulterated, and on and on.

As for twitter and blog posts, it seems that non-Japanese speakers are forced to rely on reports from such sources, since the western media is largely ignoring these issues. Then again, if you'd bothered to look around this blog, you would realize that it consists largely of articles translated from the Japanese news media, from press conferences (includes those of TEPCO and government reps), reports from academics and institutions, and not just anonymous rumors as you seem to believe.

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