The Science and Technology Agency's latest check on radiation exposure at the site of the Tokai nuclear accident found that 56 people still have high levels of radiation in their bodies, the agency said Friday.
The survey of 229 residents and other people who were near the site of the accident, JCO Co.'s plant in Tokai, Ibaraki Prefecture, showed that 56 people registered more than 1 millisieverts of radiation, the amount considered permissible for a normal person to be exposed to in a year.
One person registered 7.2 millisieverts, with the rest at 5 millisieverts or less, the agency said. The agency claimed the risk of damage to health is very small.
The agency said it has completed radiation checks related to the nuclear accident, Japan's worst, which occurred in September last year.
The agency also said there was a mistake in computing the number of people exposed to radiation and revised the figure to 438 from 439, its calculation released in January.
The agency has checked the radiation levels of a total of 667 people.
The 229 people comprised 28 people living near the JCO plant, 175 police officers and Tokai municipal officials and 26 from the media.