Bodies of three Fukushima plant workers recovered three weeks after disaster

Their remains were unearthed last Wednesday but had to be decontaminated before they could be returned to their families.

The Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), which operates the Fukushima Daiichi plant, said the bodies were found on March 30 in the basement of the turbine building of reactor 4.

They were named as Kazuhiko Kokubo, 24, and Yoshiki Terashima, 21.

Japan’s Kyodo news agency said they died of bleeding from multiple head wounds.

Meanwhile, officials are still struggling to stop contaminated water leaking into the sea from a crack in reactor 2.

They now intend to try using an absorbent polymer to plug the gap.

Initial attempts to stop the leak by pouring concrete into the containment pit have failed.

The authorities say the radioactive material will rapidly dissipate in the sea and is not thought likely to endanger health.

But the pools of contaminated water within the nuclear plant are hampering efforts to stabilise the reactors.

More than 60 bodies have been recovered over the past two days as efforts to recover the dead continue on land and at sea. Over 16,000 people remain unaccounted for.

Yesterday, Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan visited the area around Fukushima in his first ground visit to the disaster zone, although he had flown over tsunami-hit areas the day after the earthquake.

Kan visited an evacuation centre and the base camp for workers trying to stabilise the plant, just inside the 20-km exclusion zone around Fukushima Daiichi.

Kan assured people in Rikuzentakata affected by the disaster that the Japanese government would do all it could to help them.