TOKYO, May 14, (AFP) - Japan shut down the final working reactor at a nuclear plant near a tectonic faultline today as Prime Minister Naoto Kan pledged a new law to help compensate victims of the Fukushima nuclear crisis.
Workers suspended the Hamaoka powerstation's number-five reactor at 1:00 pm (0400 GMT) in a bid to avoid a repeat of the atomic emergency sparked by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. “The shutdown was confirmed after we inserted all 205 control rods into the reactor,” said Hiroaki Oobayashi, a spokesman for the plant's operator Chubu Electric Power Co.
Seismologists have long warned that a major earthquake is overdue in the Tokai region southwest of Tokyo where the Hamaoka plant is located.
The prime minister called for Hamaoka's closure last week, eight weeks after the 9.0-magnitude quake and tsunami which knocked out the cooling systems at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, sparking the world's worst atomic crisis in 25 years.
Kan has insisted the Hamaoka plant should stay shut while a higher sea wall is built and other measures are taken to guard it against natural disasters. The process is expected to last a few years.
The complex, located on the Pacific coast some 200 kilometres (125 miles) northeast of Tokyo, has five reactors but only two have been running recently -- numbers four and five.
Nuke plant worker dies
TOKYO, May 14, (AFP) - A worker died at Japan's disaster-stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant today as emergency crews continued their operations to prevent a major meltdown, the plant's operator said.
The male worker in his 60s was confirmed dead after he was rushed to hospital after falling unconscious at the plant, Tokyo Electric Power Co. spokesman Yoshinori Mori said. |
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