A former Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant worker has been diagnosed with radiation-linked cancer, Japanese authorities said yesterday, the first such confirmation more than four years after the worst atomic accident in a generation.
An official with the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare said the ex-employee, who was in his 30s while working at the plant following the 2011 crisis, has developed leukemia. He is now 41 years old, local media reported.
“The case has met the criteria” to link his illness to the accident, the official told a Tokyo press briefing on condition of anonymity, adding that other possible causes have been ruled out.
“This person went to see a doctor because was not feeling well. That was when he was diagnosed with leukemia,” the official said.
The ministry revealed few details about the man, but said he had worked at a destroyed building that housed one of the crippled reactors.
The man, who wore protective equipment during more than a year spent at Fukushima Dai-ichi, will be awarded compensation to pay for his medical costs and lost income, the official said, without elaborating on the amount.
Three similar cases of cancer in plant workers are still awaiting confirmation of a link to the accident.
There has been hot debate about whether the 2011 accident would lead to a spike in cancer among employees of the plant and those who lived in the surrounding area.
Yesterday’s announcement is likely further inflame widespread public opposition to nuclear power.
No deaths have been directly attributed to the radiation released during the 2011 accident, but it has displaced tens of thousands of people and left large areas uninhabitable, possibly for decades.
A huge quake-sparked tsunami, which leveled Japan’s northeast cost and killed more than 18,000 people, swamped cooling systems at the plant, sending some reactors into meltdown and sparking a decades-long cleanup.
Former Fukushima Dai-ichi plant manager Masao Yoshida died two years after the accident at the age of 58, but site operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) has disputed whether his illness was linked to radiation.
Yoshida captured headlines after he stayed at his post in a desperate bid to tame the runaway reactors, while his workers battled frequent aftershocks to try to prevent the disaster worsening.
TEPCO insisted that it would have taken at least five years and more likely a decade for Yoshida’s esophageal cancer to have develop if radiation exposure were to blame.
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