To the cautious relief of hundreds of thousands of people fearing contamination from Japan's worst nuclear accident, the government yesterday lifted an advisory or-dering residents near the plant to stay indoors.
Officials said the accident Thursday morning at the uranium processing plant in Tokaimura in northeastern Japan had been contained, but only after sending three workers to the hospital.
The lifting of the advisory came as the private company that ran the plant acknowledged serious violations of in-house safety rules were behind the accident.
Within hours after the accident, the government had evacuated 160 people within a 350-meter radius and told 310,000 people living within a 10km radius to stay indoors and keep their windows closed.
Yesterday afternoon, top government spokesman Hiromu Nonaka announced the lifting of the advisory, saying the radiation level in the area was back to normal. The evacuation warning for the area immediately surrounding the plant, however, remained.
Life seemed to gradually return to normal, but many people were still on edge.
"It's just too scary. You can't trust the government. Just because they say it's safe doesn't mean it's really safe; does it?" said Kazuo Hashimoto, a teacher from Hitachi, one of the towns near Tokaimura where people had been warned to stay indoors. "I don't think I'm going to feel comfortable being outdoors for a very long time."
Doctors also say that no one can totally rule out the long-term health risks of exposure to even low levels of radiation, especially for young children.
The International Atomic Energy Agency, which operates under the auspices of the UN, said the accident was more serious than originally believed and offered its assistance to the Tokyo government.
A total of 49 people were exposed to the radiation, the National Police Agency said. Among these were three firefighters, 36 workers and seven people who were working at a golf range near the plant.
Two workers -- Hisashi Ouchi, 35, and Masato Shinohara, 39 -- remained in critical condition yesterday, though their conditions had improved. All three hospitalized workers remained in intensive care. Their symptoms include diar-rhea, fever, a high white-blood-cell count and reddened skin.
The accident was the most serious ever at a nuclear facility in Japan, and is the first time one has accidentally gone critical -- meaning that the fission reaction becomes self-sustaining.
See also: Chain Reaction
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