Fukushima cleanup recruits ‘nuclear gypsies’ from across Japan via guardian.co.uk

Justin McCurry in Iwaki-Yumoto

guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 13 July 2011 19.42 BST

Workers on the bus which will transfer them to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. Photograph: Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert

The sun has only just risen in Iwaki-Yumoto when groups of men in white T-shirts and light blue cargo pants emerge blinking into the sunlight, swapping the comfort of their air-conditioned rooms for the fierce humidity of a Japanese summer.

Four months on from the start of the world’s worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl, this hot-spring resort in north-east Japan has been transformed into a dormitory for 2,000 men who have travelled from across the country to take part in the clean-up effort 30 miles away at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant.

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