Japan court upholds ruling to close two reactors in west
A Japanese court has upheld an injunction to keep two reactors at the Kansai nuclear plant closed for safety issues.
The Otsu District Court on Tuesday ordered the reactors at Kansai Electric Power Co's Takahama nuclear plant to remain shut, according to Kyodo news agency.
The court had on March 9 ordered Japan’s second-biggest utility to shut the Takahama No.3 and No.4 units with immediate effect.
The ruling, which was the first injunction to shut a nuclear plant in operation, indicated that the court sided with residents who filed a lawsuit against the operation of the reactors over safety reasons.
The ruling in March came only two days before the fifth anniversary of the country’s Fukushima disaster in 2011.
In March 2011, a massive tsunami triggered by a magnitude-9 quake filled the Fukushima nuclear cooling systems with water, sending some reactors into meltdown.
The tsunami, which sent huge waves along a vast swathe of coastline, crippled the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. The cooling systems of the plant’s reactors were knocked out, leading to meltdowns and the release of radioactive radiation into the air, soil and sea.
Some 18,000 were killed or went missing.
The incident, considered the world’s worst nuclear accident since the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986, also led to the evacuation of 160,000 people from areas near the power plant.
More than five years on, some areas remain no-go zones due to high radiation levels, and most of the people who evacuated have not yet been able to return to their homes.
The Japanese government and utility firms have been pushing to get reactors – all of which had been shut off following the crisis – back in operation, although many people in the country reportedly oppose the return to nuclear energy following the 2011 crisis.
The government, however, restarted two reactors in Japan’s southwestern prefecture of Kagoshima in August and October 2015.
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