Japan to probe Tepco's alleged radiation cover-up claim at Fukushima

Tokyo - The Japanese Government has said it will investigate a report claiming that workers at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant were urged to cover them up to protect themselves from exposure to radiation.

According to The BBC, Build-Up, a subcontractor for plant operator Tepco, admitted that one of its executives had told workers to put lead shields on radiation detection devices.

In December, a Build-Up executive told them to cover their dosimeters with lead casings when working in areas with high radiation.

Otherwise, he warned, they would quickly reach the legal limit of 50 millisieverts' exposure in a year, and they would have to stop working.

"Unless we hide it with lead, exposure will max out and we cannot work," the executive was heard saying in the recording, as quoted by the paper.

The executive apparently said he used one of the lead shields himself.

A Tepco spokesman said the company was aware from a separate contractor that Build-Up made the lead shields, but that they were never used at the Fukushima plant.

Earlier this month, a Japanese parliamentary panel concluded the disaster at Fukushima was "profoundly manmade" and its effects could have been "mitigated by a more effective human response".

The Fukishima plant was devastated by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
Cooling systems to reactors were knocked out, leading to meltdowns and the release of radioactivity.

Thousands of residents were evacuated from an exclusion zone around the plant.