Hot spring facility in Iwaki offers nuclear plant workers welcome rest (JAPAN)

[AsahinaKimi]

The outside of Yumoto Onsen, with a flag reading, "Ganbatte Iwaki" (You can do it, Iwaki!) is seen in Iwaki, Fukushima

IWAKI, Fukushima -- A hot spring facility here is offering its soothing services to workers engaged in repair work at the disaster-hit Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant.

Located about 10 kilometers southwest of the center of Iwaki, the area around the Yumoto Onsen hot spring has enjoyed popularity since the Edo Period (1603 to 1867). However, the earthquake on March 11 cut plumbing and gas lines in the area, and all 28 inns around the hot spring closed. After the hydrogen explosion on March 12, they were inundated with reservation cancellations.

But Hidenori Koito, 55, owner of an area inn and president of the Iwaki Yumoto hot spring and inn cooperative, says he then began receiving some unexpected requests. Companies such as gas companies and ones involved with repair work at the Fukushima plant began making requests to house their workers. They made big bookings: a reservation for 100 people, another for 20 people for two months. Until then, those workers had been sleeping in crowded conditions in the companies' Iwaki facilities, unable even to bathe.

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/features/news/20110514p2a00m0na022000c.html
============================================================================================
Nice story...^^

[ret5hd]

1. After the radiation seeps into the groundwater it will bring a whole new meaning...

to the words "hot springs".

[Generic Other]

2. What horrible thought...

Would radiation only be absorbed when it hit the volcanic layers? Or would that spread it further? These are not questions I have ever thought about before.