An ex-employee in the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant employee has been diagnosed with radiation-linked cancer, Japanese officials confirmed on Tuesday. It is the first official case where an illness has directly been linked to the 2011 Fukushima disaster.

Even though no other illness related to the disaster has been reported so far, some Japanese officials believe that the discovery of the radiation-related cancer case could be just the tip of an iceberg.

Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant got hit by a meltdown after a tsunami hit the country in 2011. That time, nearly 44,000 workers were deployed to the area to safely shut down the plant. According to the Washington Post, the 41-year-old unnamed man, who has now been diagnosed with leukaemia, was one of the workers who were assigned with the task.

Japan’s ministry of health, labour and welfare confirmed that the man's illness is related to the nuclear radiation from the plant, and that the employee had filed a worker's compensation claim. The official also revealed that the man, who was in his 30s then, was assigned to work in a destroyed building that had one of the crippled nuclear reactors.

The man worked at the site for almost a year. The health ministry official said that he will be awarded compensation for his medical bills and loss of income. However, the amount of the total compensation was not revealed.

Meanwhile, Masao Yoshida, a former Fukushima plant manager, died two years after the nuclear disaster, Japan Today reports. However, the site operator, Tokyo Electric Power, argued that his illness was not related to the radiation. Three more cases of cancer, similar to the one reported recently, are awaiting confirmation on whether they are linked to the radiation.

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