Japan Press Weekly

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2015 April 22 - 28 [SOCIAL ISSUES]

Kagoshima district court refuses to block restarting Sendai nuclear power plant

The Kagoshima District Court on April 22 rejected twelve local residents’ demand for a provisional injunction against the restarting of two reactors at the Sendai Nuclear Power Plant in Kagoshima Prefecture.

The court acknowledged that the Nuclear Regulation Authority’s new safety standards for nuclear power stations are reasonable. This is in stark contrast with the Fukui District Court’s recent decision which criticizes the standards as lax and unreasonable, ordering the Takahama Nuclear Power Station to be kept offline.

As the reasons for filling the injunction, the twelve residents argued that the severity of earthquakes considered in the standards approval process is underestimated and that the proposed evacuation plans for nuclear accidents are infeasible.

Citing scientists’ assertion that it is impossible to predict volcanic eruptions, the residents pointed out that the operator of the Sendai NPP may not be able to carry spent nuclear fuel to a safe place before a pyroclastic flow reaches the plant site after an eruption. The court, however, dismissed all these arguments.

Following the court decision, Morinaga Akiko, one of the twelve residents, said, “Although the court considered the evacuation plans to be reasonable and viable, local people don’t think so.” She also said that the court ignored the residents’ criticism that the evacuation plans were made on the assumption that some evacuees will inevitably be exposed to radiation.

Japanese Communist Party member of the Kagoshima Prefectural Assembly Matsuzaki Makoto said that the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster made it clear that nuclear power plants and humans cannot coexist. She expressed her determination to work to block the resumption of the operation of the Sendai NPP.