The only harm that 79 Eskom employees suffered when they were contaminated by radiation at the Koeberg nuclear power station was "emotional", Eskom said yesterday.
The workers apparently became contaminated when they inhaled among others, the radioactive Cobalt 58 isotope.
The incident prompted the National Nuclear Regulator to deploy a team to investigate the circumstances of the contamination.
One of the Koeberg units is undergoing maintenance and refuelling and 1800 workers have been contracted to assist the employees with the operation.
Eskom spokesman Carin de Villiers said there was no reason to panic.
She said the employee with the highest contamination level was 0.5% of the annual allowable dose of 20 000 microSieverts, the unit in which radiation is measured.
De Villiers said 91 workers set off monitor alarms after they finished their shift on September 12.
"The workers were sent for a whole body count by a machine which measures them from top to toe to check what they had taken in," she said.
The employees were then sent for counselling for the emotional harm suffered.
James Larkin, director of the radiation and health physics unit at Wits University, said six flights between Cape Town and Johannesburg would expose a passenger to roughly the same amount of radiation.
"There are no long-term or short-term side effects," said Larkin.
"The sensitive detectors that are used at Koeberg are able to measure even such low values of radiation and Eskom is obliged to report it."
But DA deputy shadow minister of public enterprises, Pieter van Dalen claimed he was informed the workers had been cleaning the walls of the reactor when radiation alarms went off. "But this was ignored and they continued to work," he said.
"Then when they finished their shift they passed through detectors which set off alarms. Only then were they quarantined and emergency services were called."
He claimed that Koeberg staff have complained that many employees' educational level and qualifications were not up to standard and "they don't know what they are doing".
