Last Defense at Troubled Reactors: 50 Japanese Workers

By KEITH BRADSHER and HIROKO TABUCHI

Published: March 15, 2011

They are the faceless 50, the unnamed operators who stayed behind. They have volunteered, or been assigned, to pump seawater on dangerously exposed nuclear fuel, already thought to be partly melting and spewing radioactive material, to prevent full meltdowns that could throw thousands of tons of radioactive dust high into the air and imperil millions of their compatriots.