Operator confirms smoke at Japanese nuclear power plant, no leaks detected
Tokyo, Aug 17 (EFE).- The company that operates the Hamaoka nuclear power plant in the city of Omaezaki in Shizuoka Prefecture, southwest of Tokyo, confirmed on Tuesday the presence of smoke in a building that houses a turbine of one of the reactors after fire alarms went off, although no leakage of radioactive material has been detected at the plant, which has not been operational since 2011.
The Chubu Electric Power Company has also indicated that it is the second such event at the plant in the past week after an electrical wire caused smoke at the facility on Thursday.
The fire alarms went off at around 5:15 am on Tuesday on the second and third floors of the four-story building that houses the turbine of No. 5 reactor of the plant, which has five units, all of which have been suspended for more than a decade and two of them permanently shut down in 2009.
The company has not reported any injuries or leakage of radioactive material at the plant and its surroundings at the moment.
The Hamaoka nuclear power plant, considered for years as one of the most dangerous atomic facilities in the world due to its location in an area where two major continental plates meet, suspended its operations in May 2011, two months after the nuclear accident in the Fukushima plant triggered by a massive earthquake and tsunami.
Japan’s then prime minister, Naoto Kan, asked for it to cease operations based on the opinion of multiple experts about the high probability of an earthquake with devastating effects in the coming decades.
Despite the fact that many citizen organizations have called for the permanent shutdown of the Hamaoka plant, the decision regarding its final closure remains in the air. EFE
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