For the first time since a devastating earthquake and tsunami triggered meltdowns at Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant in 2011, the Japanese<\/b>
\nFor the first time since a devastating earthquake and tsunami triggered meltdowns at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant in 2011, the Japanese government says a former plant worker has died as a result of radiation exposure.
The country’s health and labor ministry has said the man’s family should be paid compensation, according to state broadcaster NHK .
It’s not clear precisely when the man died. He was in his 50s, NHK said, and his duties included \u00ab\u00a0measuring radiation levels at the plant immediately after the severe nuclear accident.\u00a0\u00bb He left his job there in 2015, and was diagnosed with lung cancer before his death.
The ministry said that he \u00ab\u00a0developed cancer due to total radiation exposure of around 195 millisieverts,\u00a0\u00bb NHK reported. According to Reuters, exposure to 100 millisieverts of radiation in a year \u00ab\u00a0is the lowest level at which any increase in cancer risk is clearly evident.\u00a0\u00bb
The earthquake and tsunami killed approximately 19,000 people, as NPR’s Elise Hu reported, and \u00ab\u00a0most drowned within minutes.\u00a0\u00bb The radiation plumes caused by Fukushima’s meltdowns spread up to 25 miles away, she added.
And while this is the first fatality that was attributed to radiation, NHK says four workers who have cancer have been deemed eligible for compensation.
One of them, who is suffering from leukemia, was awarded compensation last December, according to The Asahi Shimbun .
He \u00ab\u00a0was engaged in emergency operations to send water to cool the reactor containment vessels and assess the extent of damage,\u00a0\u00bb the newspaper said, and did so for months after the disaster started.
As workers report cancers that could be linked to radiation exposure, it’s difficult to prove that the meltdown is definitely the cause. At least five applications for compensation have been denied, according to the Asahi Shimbun.
As Nature reported in 2012, two assessments by the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation and the World Health Organization concluded that \u00ab\u00a0few people will develop cancer as a consequence of being exposed to radioactive material… and those who do will never know for sure what caused their disease.\u00a0\u00bb
The U. N. report \u00ab\u00a0shows that 167 workers at the plant received radiation doses that slightly raise their risk of developing cancer,\u00a0\u00bb the journal wrote. At the same time, for those workers, \u00ab\u00a0future cancers may never be directly tied to the accident, owing to the small number of people involved and the high background rates of cancer in developed countries such as Japan.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n

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