-spoiler edited in to keep my folly on the net. This is the rest of my previously unedited post.
I mean, I'm not saying they deserve the 2-6 Sievert dose into their legs, far from it. They're working under conditions that would probably drive a normal man into suicide. On their shoulders rest the fate of millions of people, and there's a danger of lasting effects and instant death should they be at the wrong place at the wrong time. I understand that they want to get this under control and locked down ASAP, that they're giving their all, and that they're probably at their limits. I really do. Sitting in my comfy chair thousands of kilometers away really doesn't help me or make me an expert.
That doesn't really change the fact that there was no point to sloshing around in the water, though. These guys are professionals, even if two of them aren't Tepco employees IIRC. Their task was not fixing an immediate time-critical threat at all costs, at least as far as we're aware. There was no need for heroics. They were sent in to fix shit, and they should've done a U-turn and reported the situation once they hit the dead end. They didn't. They fixed the stuff, and now the team is down three qualified engineers because of that. It remains to be seen whether that was a good trade-off.
Just burns me up that all the info we're given points to the fact that this situation could have been avoided. Shitsux.
