The owner of Japan’s most crippled nuclear power plant burst into tears on Friday after a press conference. It’s not hard to see why: His plant, Fukushima Daiichi, was forced to raise its limits for workers’ radiation exposure in a last-ditch attempt to restore its endangered reactors. Employees may now be exposed to 150 millisieverts per shift; in comparison, the U.S. strives to keep such exposure to 5 millisieverts per year. The radiation threatens to hobble Japan’s export-led economy as well: Importing nations have begun to test shipments of Japan’s food and cars for radiation.