Netizens around the world voice support for the 'Fukushima 50'

A student cries during a graduation ceremony at Ryori Junior High School in Ofunato city, Iwate prefecture, on Friday. The ceremony was held in the classroom since the gymnastic hall is being used as an evacuation center. [Photo/Agencies]

Beijing - Chinese netizens joined Web users and media from around the world to pay their respects to the "Fukushima 50", a band of volunteer workers who have stayed behind at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant to try to prevent the biggest nuclear catastrophe since Chernobyl in 1986.

"You are all heroes. The countless lives you saved will never be forgotten. We pray for your safety!" a netizen from Shandong province wrote on 163.com, a major news website in China.

Some netizens just wrote "solute" to the "Fukushima 50" to express their respect.

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Five hours after the news about the volunteers was reported on 163.com, more than 10,000 responses were posted. "Netizens response to the news is amazingly strong and fast," a 163.com news editor, who requested to be not identified, said.

The "Fukushima 50" is now actually 300-strong.

Far from camera crews, the volunteers crawl through radioactive wreckage at the nuclear power plant, wearing protective masks, goggles and suits sealed off with duct tape to prevent radioactive particles from creeping in.

The AmericanBroadcastingCompany reported the sentiments of the volunteers and their families.

"My dad went to the nuclear plant. I never heard my mother cry so hard. People at the plant are struggling, sacrificing themselves to protect you. Please, dad, come back alive," said a micro blog.

"My husband is working knowing he could suffer irradiation," said one woman. Through an e-mail, he told his wife, "Please continue to live well. I cannot be home for awhile."

An e-mail from the daughter of a volunteer was shared on television, which said, "my father is still working at the plant - they are running out of food. We think conditions are really tough. He says he's accepted his fate much like a death sentence."

Safety agency and company officials won't say more about who the workers are or exactly what they are doing. However, experts said they are likely to be frontline technicians and firemen who know the plant the best.

Poignant messages sent home by the workers reveal that they know they are on a suicide mission.

One of the "Fukushima 50" said they were stoically accepting their fate "like a death sentence".

On Wednesday, the Japanese news agency Jiji told of a 59-year-old nuclear power technician from Shimane prefecture in western Japan who volunteered to help fix the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

The unidentified man, who works at a nuclear plant for a regional electric company, is six months away from retirement, Jiji said.

"The future of nuclear power depends on how this is handled," he told his daughter, according to the report. "I go there with a sense of mission."

The daughter said: "At home, he doesn't seem like someone who wants to handle big jobs. But today, I was really proud of him. I pray for his safe return."

China Daily-Reuters