Six workers exposed to high radiation at Japan plant

OSAKA - SIX workers at a quake-stricken nuclear power plant have been exposed to high levels of radiation but are continuing working there, its operator said on Sunday.

They have been exposed to more than 100 millisieverts of radiation, an official at the Tokyo Electric Power Co said, adding he had no information on what tasks they were assigned to.

'There has been no adverse effect on their health,' Takeo Iwamoto said. It was not immediately known if they had been reassigned to different tasks.

The government set 100 millisieverts as a limit for work in an emergency operation at a nuclear power plant in Japan. But the threshold has been raised to 250 for the on-going crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 plant.

The limit for work in a normal situation at a nuclear power plant is 50 millisieverts.

A 9.0-magnitude quake on March 11, followed by aftershocks and colossal tsunami waves, damaged the cooling systems of the plant, some 250km north-east of Tokyo, leaving it on the brink of a meltdown. -- AFP