Plant workers may undertake “suicide mission” to avert total meltdown

Experts Say Nuclear Emergency Nearing ‘Point of no Return’

ABC News
March 16, 2011

Surging radiation levels temporarily halted work to cool the troubled reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, raising worries that officials are running out of options to stabilize the escalating catastrophe.

“We’re very close now to the point of no return,” Dr. Michio Kaku, a theoretical physicist, said. “It’s gotten worse. We’re talking about workers coming into the reactor perhaps as a suicide mission and we may have to abandon ship.”

A group of 180 workers rotate shifts working at the plant in teams of 50 men. The men have been nicknamed the “Fukushima Fifty.”

When radiation levels surged following a fire at Unit 4 and a rising cloud of radioactive vapor from unit 3, officials deemed it too risky for the plant workers to continue their critical work of pumping sea water on the damaged reactors and fuel ponds.

“The workers cannot carry out even minimal work at the plant now,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told the Associated Press. “Because of the radiation risk we are on standby.”

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