The first foreign leader to visit the coast ravaged by the tsunami of the Japan, the Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, has expressed shock and sadness to the devastation and visited evacuees in shelter Saturday, giving toy and kangaroos koalas to the excited children.
Through a fishing village where hundreds of people are dead and missing, she said that minamisanriku looked as if she was "bombed into oblivion."
Mayor Jin Sato showed him the Red skeleton of the building of disaster management, where he is was then of a mammoth wave tore its shell on March 11. Exterior stairs were ripped off walls. A small shrine of flowers has been created on a heap of rubble.
Gillard, "It is a scene from the incredible tragedy and incredible sadness," said the last day of a four-day trip.
More than 27 000 people are dead or missing since the earthquake and tsunami. Tens of thousands live in shelters after a 90,000 houses approximately have been destroyed or damaged.
Recovery efforts were complicated by the crisis of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station, where the tsunami wiped out power and cooling systems. Workers fought to stop leaks of radiation, and the utility said bring the factory fully under control may take all year.
Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co., said Saturday that 30 workers at the plant had exceeded the former limit of exposure to radiation. This limit, 100 millisieverts per year, grew up in the crisis to 250 millisieverts. None of the workers had reached this limit, the company said. Leaks from reactors of plant are stabilized somewhat since the beginning of the crisis, but some interior spaces in the Earth and the tsunami earthquake damaged buildings that have high levels of radiation workers are not able to penetrate.
Hundreds of workers were upsetting to rotating shifts at the plant since the beginning of the disaster, most of them middle-aged men employed by TEPCO or affiliates.
TEPCO spokesman Junichi Matsumoto said managers have been instructed to closely monitor employees arriving to their radiation limits. Measures could be taken include passing workers tasks more risky, as the compensation of radioactive debris, to jobs in the Interior, as Office tasks.
The United States nuclear industry workers are allowed to an upper limit of 50 millisieverts per year. A typical individual would absorb six millisieverts per year from natural and artificial sources such as x-ray.
Radiation experts said the cumulative doses of 500 millisieverts have been demonstrated that raise the risk of future cancers. Evidence is less clear on smaller quantities, but in theory, any increased radiation exposure raises risk of cancer.
Irradiation, which develops from acute exposure, sets 1,000 millisieverts. Symptoms include nausea, vomiting and hair loss.
Workers also face problems of health based on fatigue and the stress of work in the harsh environment, a doctor who speaks told them this week. He stated that the workers of insomnia, dehydration and high blood pressure; run the risk of developing depression or heart problems.
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