‘MOST RADIOACTIVE MAN’: Harrowing story of nuclear technician kept alive for 83 excruciating days as skin melted and he ‘cried blood’

Daily Star

As nuclear technician Hisashi Ouchi helped a colleague to pour litres of uranium into a huge metal vat, he was blissfully unaware that those moments would be his last without excruciating pain.

Seconds later a blue flash engulfed the room at the Tokaimura Nuclear Power Plant as the gloopy and dangerous mixture reached ‘critical point’, releasing neutron radiation and gamma-rays.

Ouchi, 35, was the worst affected by the unexpected blast as he had been draped across the tank.

He had been helping Masato Shinohara pour the radioactive liquid into the vat, while another colleague, Yutaka Yokokawa, had been working at a desk four metres away.

None of the men had been trained to perform such sensitive procedures, and it was later found that there was 16kg of uranium in the mixture, when the limit was 2.4kg.

What happened at 10.35am on 28 September, 1999, would be the worst nuclear accident in Japan for years – and the start of 83 days of living hell for Ouchi.

Immediately after the explosion, he was falling in and out of consciousness, violently vomiting, and suffering from extreme burns.