The glory, such as it is, for battling blazes and radiation leaks at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex has belonged to firefighters, soldiers and a corps of plant workers dubbed the Fukushima 50.
But much of the grinding grunt work of taming Japan’s worst nuclear accident has fallen to a less-visible group—hundreds of industry foot soldiers who support the effort by carrying pipes, clearing debris and performing other manual labor amid the threat of elevated radiation.
In normal times, thousands of workers perform routine tasks of reactor maintenance at the Fukushima Daiichi complex. Now, many of them are being called to volunteer to work, at standard pay, at the troubled plant.
Continue reading at “Behind Reactor Battle, a Legion of Grunts”.
