TOKYO, NOV 8: Fifteen of Japan's 17 key nuclear fuel facility operators have inadequate safety measures for workers, the labour ministry said in a report released on Monday.The ministry carried out inspections on the 17 major nuclear facilities, excluding power plants, in October after a major nuclear accident on September 30 which startled the country."We found that out of the 17 key facilities, only two have health and safety control systems such as regular checking of radiation levels and inspections by industry doctors," a ministry official said.In particular, the report discovered nine nuclear-related facilities violated the industrial safety and health law, the ministry said."While we have ordered those who failed the inspection to improve their safety measures for plant workers, we will raise the number of our regular investigations," the official said.The inspections were held after a recent leak at a uranium processing plant in Tokaimura in which three workers were injured when they illegally used steel buckets to pour 16 kilograms of uranium into a precipitation tank, setting off a critical reaction.
