Japan Press Weekly

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2014 June 4 - 10 TOP3 [POLITICS]

No to restart of reactors near active volcanos: JCP Kyushu

Japanese Communist Party members of seven prefectural committees in the Kyushu region on June 3 visited the head office of Kyushu Electric Power Company to call on the utility to refrain from restarting its Sendai and Genkai nuclear power plants.

Currently, all nuclear reactors across Japan are offline. The Abe government is seeking to make the Sendai plant the first one to resume operations.

The JCP members in a written statement submitted to the company president pointed out that the two NPPs have too many problems, such as active fault lines allegedly running under the facilities, the risk of being hit by pyroclastic flows, and infeasibilities of evacuation plans in case of a severe accident. Citing the Fukui District Court order last month to keep the Oi Nuclear Power Plant offline, the JCP group urged that all nuclear power plants should be decommissioned.

A utility official said that safety examinations of the nuclear facilities are underway and the company has yet to confirm the necessity of seismic reinforcement work. Without providing concrete evidence, the official claimed that judging from the eruption history of volcanoes surrounding the NPP, the risk of pyroclastic flows is very low. About the evacuation plans, the official refused to comment as the plans were drawn up by the municipalities, not by the utility.

Kagoshima Prefectural Assembly member of the JCP Matsuzaki Makoto said, “They gave us no responsible answer. The power company only seeks to restart the reactors,” and once again demanded the decommission of all reactors in order to ensure the lives and safety of residents and the natural environment.