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Japan shuts down nuclear plant
Japan has shut down all reactors at a nuclear plant near a tectonic fault line, as government pledges a new law to help compensate victims of the Fukushima nuclear crisis.
Workers suspended the Hamaoka powerstation 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 a spokesman for the plant's operator Chubu Electric Power Co.
The decision to close down the plant followed a warning by seismologists 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.
Government 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.
