On September 30th, 1999, Hisashi Ouchi, Masato Shinohara and Yutaka Yokokawa found themselves at the centre of Japan's worst nuclear accident. The events leading up to and following those critical seconds at 10:35AM that bright morning would conclude with two of them dying, one sentenced to prison and the fall from grace of the Japanese nuclear power industry.

But what actually happened is shrouded in lies and mystery, the voids of knowledge filled with fabrications to shock and scare. Tokaimura is by far controversial, with claims of human experimentation repeated across the Internet. This is not the case. This is the story of a government that failed its citizens, and the battle to save their lives among misguided hope.

It has been more than two months since the Tokaimura Criticality Accident, and morale among the three medical teams each treating the three patients exposed to massive doses of neutron and gamma radiation is varied. One is expecting a release from hospital shortly, one is hoping their patient will make a full recovery, and one is expecting it all to end soon. The medical battle continues.

Sources:

The Criticality Accident in Tokaimura: Medical Aspects of Radiation Emergency. Case Presentation of Worker A.

A Slow Death: 83 Days of Radiation Sickness.

Daily 04/23 20:45 JCO criticality accident - The wife's earnest statement is read out by the Mito District Court:

Another Story: Tokaimura

Initial medical management of patients severely irradiated in the Tokai-mura criticality accident

Follow-up of delayed health consequences of acute accidental radiation exposure. Lessons to be learned from their medical management

http://www.seizanso.co.jp/present/199...

https://web.archive.org/web/200306281...

LESSONS LEARNED FROM THE JCO NUCLEAR CRITICALITY ACCIDENT IN JAPAN IN 1999