![Six more workers have been exposed to dangerous amounts of radiation at the Fukushima plant. [ABC]](http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/201105/r770285_6548659.jpg "Six more workers have been exposed to dangerous amounts of radiation at the Fukushima plant. [ABC]")
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Six more workers have been exposed to dangerous amounts of radiation at the Fukushima plant. [ABC]
Mark Willacy, Tokyo
Last Updated:
The operator of Japan's damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant says six more workers have been exposed to dangerous amounts of radiation. In an effort to deal with the biggest nuclear crisis since Chernobyl, the Japanese government raised the acceptable radiation limit from 100 millisieverts to 250.
A total of eight workers at the Fukushima plant have now been exposed to radiation above that upper limit.
Two of them have suffered doses of more than 500 millisieverts, or twice the maximum.
About 3,700 workers are carrying out emergency repairs to the nuclear plant which has been leaking radiation into the air, the sea, the soil and groundwater.
Toxic
The revelation comes after highly toxic radioactive material was found in groundwater near the crippled nuclear plant.
Strontium has been detected in groundwater near the plant's Number One and Number Two reactors, which were seriously damaged by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
Strontium tends to accumulate in bones and can cause bone cancer and leukemia.
The operator of the Fukushima plant has now confirmed that strontium up to 240 times the legal limit has been found in seawater near the facility.
Japan's nuclear safety agency says it will now monitor the effects of the strontium on fish and marine life near the plant.
In June, radioactive caesium was found in leaves at a tea factory in the city of Shizuoka, about 360 kilometres from the Fukushima plant.
Japanese officials blamed the damaged nuclear plant for the radioactive tea.
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