VIENNA: Japan has told the UN atomic agency that 28 nuclear workers have received high radiation doses as they battle to stabilize the stricken Fukushima Daiichi power plant. Of the 300 people at the site, which was hit by an earthquake and tsunami a month ago, 28 have accumulated doses of more than 100 millisieverts (mSv), the International Atomic Energy Agency said, citing data from Japanese authorities. “No worker has received a dose above Japan's guidance value of 250 mSv for restricting the exposure of emergency workers,” the Vienna-based IAEA said Friday. The average dose for a nuclear plant worker is 50 millisieverts over five years. Last month two workers from the Fukushima site were taken to hospital after their feet were exposed to 170-180 millisiverts when they stepped into contaminated water. They have since recovered. Fukushima is the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl 25 years ago and Japanese authorities have rated it as the most severe on an internationally recognised scale. However, unlike Chernobyl, no one appears to have died from radiation exposure. The report was released as the government ordered the operator of Japan's tsunami-damaged nuclear plant Friday to pay an initial $12,000 for each household forced to evacuate because of leaking radiation – a handout some of the displaced slammed as too little. Tens of thousands of residents unable to return to their homes near the nuclear plant are bereft of their livelihoods and possessions, unsure of when, if ever, they will be able to return home. Some have traveled hundreds of kilometers to Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s headquarters in Tokyo to press their demands for compensation. “We have decided to pay provisional compensation to provide the slightest help for the people (who were affected),” TEPCO President Masataka Shimizu told a news conference. The utility will start paying out the roughly 50 billion yen ($600 million) in compensation April 28 to those forced to evacuate, with families getting 1 million yen (about $12,000) and single adults getting 750,000 yen (about $9,000), the government said. Roughly 48,000 households living within about 30 kilometers of the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant would be eligible for the payments, said Trade Ministry spokesman Hiroaki Wada. More compensation was expected later, he said. “I'm not satisfied,” said Kazuko Suzuki, a 49-year-old single mother of two teenagers from the town of Futuba, adjacent to the plant. She has lived at a shelter at a high school north of Tokyo for the last month. Her family has had to buy clothes, food, shampoo and other basics because they fled the area on government orders without taking time to pack. She has lost her job as a welfare worker, and a job prospect for her 18-year-old fell through because of the effects of the disaster. “We've had to spend money on so many extra things and we don't know how long this could go on,” she said.
