Japan’s nuclear regulator plans to ban the operator of the wrecked Fukushima nuclear power station from reactivating another plant due to security flaws, the authority said on Wednesday.
The Nuclear Regulation Authority, NRA, was set to ban Tokyo Electric Power from transporting nuclear fuel to the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power station or loading fuel into its reactors, located in the prefecture of Niigata, on the Sea of Japan coast.
A final decision would be made after the operator is given an opportunity to respond to the possible ban, an NRA official told dpa.
The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant was found vulnerable to unauthorised entry at 15 locations since March 2020 due to defective intruder detection systems and backups, the NRA and the operator said earlier this month, according to the report.
NRA provisionally-rated the breach to be at the worst level in terms of safety and severity.
“We have yet to thoroughly confirm whether measures to protect nuclear material at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa are sufficient,’’ NRA chairman, Toyoshi Fuketa, said at a meeting on Wednesday.
Tokyo Electric was eager to restart the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant as it has faced massive compensation payments and other costs from the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station.
The Fukushima plant suffered a triple meltdown after it was hit by a powerful earthquake and resulting tsunami on March 11, 2011.
dpa/NAN
