International briefs: Japan

Published on Saturday 23 April 2011 12:14

THE Japanese government has proposed a special $50 billion budget to help finance reconstruction efforts and announced plans to build 100,000 temporary homes for the survivors of March's devastating earthquake.

Recovery efforts have been complicated by the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, which lost its power and cooling systems in the earthquake and tsunami. Since then, nuclear workers have been struggling to get the radiation leaks at the plant under control.

Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power said yesterday that 30 workers at the plant had exceeded the former limit of radiation exposure.

That limit, 100 millisieverts a year, was raised amid the crisis to 250 millisieverts. None of the workers had yet reached that limit.