Plant fire contaminates 35

TOKAIMURA - A fire and explosion at a nuclear reprocessing plant contaminated at least 35 workers with minor radiation in Japan's worst atomic accident, authorities said yesterday. The incident, which occurred on Tuesday night at a state run Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel Development Corporation (PNC) plant at Tokaimura, 160 km north east of Tokyo, put Japan's nuclear industry in the eye of a storm with the Prime Minister, Mr Ryutaro Hashimoto, forced to apologise to the nation.