Crews exposed during helicopter relief missions; 2nd explosion rocks Japan nuke plant
SOMA, Japan — The U.S. Seventh Fleet moved its ships and aircraft away from a quake-stricken Japanese nuclear plant Monday after discovering low-level radioactive contamination on crews returning from relief missions.
Seventeen U.S. military personnel involved in helicopter relief missions were found to have been exposed to low levels of radiation upon returning to the USS Ronald Reagan, an aircraft carrier about 100 miles offshore.
U.S. officials said the exposure level was roughly equal to one month's normal exposure to natural background radiation in the environment, and after scrubbing with soap and water, the 17 were declared contamination-free.
As a precaution, the 7th fleet said the USS Ronald Reagan and its other ships moved downwind from the nuclear site while the navy evaluated the situation.
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3 comments:
If by "roughly equal to", you mean "dead in 10 years or less", well I can understand the government's position. I'm sure they would NEVER say "oops, we just got 10,000 sailors a lethal dose"....
When I was a swabbie (some years ago) my ship had a fresh water washdown system to remove, so they said, nuclear contamination -- do they still have those?
NOW HEAR THIS: STANDBY FOR BASE SURGE AND HEAVY FALLOUT -- THIS IS A DRILL SO DON'T JUMP OVERBOARD.
How times have changed. When I was in the USN all we had to worry about was getting VD on liberty.
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