Two Japanese travellers have been hospitalised in China with “severe” radiation levels after they arrived on a commercial airliner from Tokyo, China’s safety watchdog said.
The General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said radiation levels that “seriously exceeded limits” were detected on the two when they arrived in the eastern city of Wuxi on Wednesday.
But China’s customs body said they did not present a risk to others.
Until now, no-one in Japan except workers at the stricken plant has been found with seriously elevated radiation levels, and Japan’s foreign ministry noted that as of March 18 the International Civil Aviation Association had declared that screening of airline passengers from Japan was not necessary.
The first case of contaminated Japanese travelling abroad came as injuries to workers slowed the battle to control the Fukushima complex, 240 kilometres north of Tokyo.
Some 700 engineers have been working around the clock to stabilise the six-reactor plant since the multiple disaster on March 11 which left more than 27,000 people dead or missing.
But they had to pull out of some parts of the complex when three workers replacing a cable at one reactor were exposed to high contamination by standing in radioactive water yesterday, officials said.
Two were taken to hospital with possible radiation burns after the water seeped over their boots.
“We should try to avoid delays as much as possible, but we also need to ensure that the people working there are safe,” said Japanese nuclear agency official Hidehiko Nishiyama.
Safety fears at the plant and beyond – radiation particles have been found as far away as Iceland – are compounding Japan’s worst crisis since World War II.
As well as causing the most serious nuclear accident since Chernobyl in 1986, the magnitude-9.0 quake and ensuing wall of water that tore in from the Pacific killed over 10,000 people and left 17,541 more missing, according to latest police figures.
