Nuclear leak plant was built over active fault zone
Thursday July 19 2007
THE world's biggest nuclear power station stands directly above an active earthquake faultline, which provoked an atomic spill this week, seismologists revealed yesterday.
The disclosure that the Kashiwazaki plant was prone to further earthquake damage threw Japan's nuclear industry into crisis as seismologists recommended that up to one-third of the country's 55 atomic power stations be closed for inspection.
In addition to the seismic threat to the Kashiwazaki plant, scientists identified an active threat to one of Japan's oldest nuclear power stations and demanded that it should be closed immediately.
Serious
The former head of the country's top authority on earthquake prediction said that the Shizuoka plant posed a serious safety risk and that atomic experts were calling for it to be shut down.
Professor Kiyoo Mogi of Tokyo University, the former chairman of the Co-ordinating Committee of Earthquake Prediction Japan, said that it was "hard at this stage to say how many nuclear power plants should be stopped."
"But I can say Hamaoka power plant in Shizuoka should be stopped immediately," he added.
The precarious state of the Kashiwazaki plant was underscored by an earthquake on Monday that knocked over hundreds of drums of nuclear waste, many of which spilt open during the tremors. The plant was shut down.
The suspension of this plant and the threat of widespread disruption to nuclear plants around the country was likely to herald "a hot summer of blackouts" in parts of central Japan, energy analysts said. (© The Times, London)
- Leo Lewis
