Radiation levels too high for workers in Fukushima Daiichi Unit 3

NKH World public broadcasting in Japan has reported that a small team of Tokyo Electric Power Company workers entered the devastated Unit 3 reactor building at Fukushima Daiichi for a short time last Thursday, long enough to measure radiation dose rates at 10 rem per hour -- much too high for prolonged exposure. Before the catastrophe began, Japanese nuclear workers were limited to 5 rem per year of "acceptable" dosage. However, in the aftermath of the catastrophe, the Japanese federal government upped the "permissible" exposure to 25 rem per year. German nuclear power plant workers, by contrast, are limited to 2 rem per year of exposure under ordinary (non-emergency) nuclear working conditions. Work is needed within the rubble-ized Unit 3 reactor secondary containment building to install a circulating water system to cool the molten core, reported to have breached the reactor pressure vessel and now be spreading onto the primary containment structure's floor, lest it burn through. However, leakage pathways exist in the reactor pressure vessel and primary containment structure, as 6,400 tons of radioactively contaminated water have accumulated in the Unit 3 basement areas, NHK reports.