Jeremy L. Dillon
RW Monitor
1/23/2015
Two worker deaths have occurred over two days in separate incidents at the Fukushima Daii-chi cleanup site, the Tokyo Electric Power Company announced this week. The deaths brings the total work fatalities at the site to three in the past year after a worker died from falling rubble while digging a ditch last March. The first death occurred on Jan. 19 when an employee of cooperative company Hazama Ando Corp. fell approximately 10 meters from the top plate of a water receptacle plant he was installing, but no radioactive material was found on his body according to a Reuters report. The second death occurred this week when another worker of an unidentified cooperative company was injured while inspecting the concentration apparatus on the 5th floor of the Units 1 and 2 waste treatment facility. “We pray that [their] souls rest in peace and express our sincere condolences to the family,” TEPCO said in a statement. “TEPCO will investigate the cause of the accident in detail and will rededicate ourselves to future accident prevention.”
According to a report from the South China Morning Post, labor inspectors last week warned the TEPCO about the rise in accidents and ordered it to take measures to deal with the problem. TEPCO has had problems with workers in the past. In 2013, an investigation conducted by Reuters revealed TEPCO illegally hired hundreds of workers to help construct some water tanks, and the company had paid poorly for the work. TEPCO has vowed to make improvements, but the worker deaths raise additional safety questions at the site.