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Governor of Japan's Kagoshima Prefecture requests suspension of nuclear reactors

Xinhua, August 26, 2016 Adjust font size:

The governor of Kagoshima Prefecture on Friday asked the operator of a nuclear facility on Japan's southern Kyushu island to suspend its operations and re-perform safety checks.

Satoshi Mitazono, newly elected to the post and an advocate of abandoning nuclear energy, requested Kyushu Electric Power Co. to halt operations of its No. 1 and 2 reactors at the Sendai nuclear power plant, to recheck safety measures.

The request was made by Mitazono to Kyushu Electric Power Co.'s president, Michiaki Uriu, to take the reactors offline at the facility in Satsumasendai, due to mounting concerns from local people about the safety of the nuclear plant, following a series of sizable earthquakes that shook nearby prefectures in April.

The plant's two reactors are among just three currently in operation in Japan in the wake of the Fukushima disaster in 2011, when all of the nation's reactors that weren't already offline for regular safety checks were halted pending tougher security standards implemented by Japan's nuclear watchdog.

Kyushu Electric, who said it will respond to the governor's request next month, is already planning to take both reactors offline in October and December for regular safety checks.

The government's top spokesperson, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, told a press conference before Mitazono made his request, that the central government's energy policy remained unchanged and that it plans to bring all idled reactors back online if they pass the new safety standards and will continue to seek the public's understanding.

Mitazono, who won the election to become governor last month, campaigned on an anti-nuclear platform and has maintained that the Sendai facility be halted for checks to allay concerns among local residents in the prefecture, particularly after the devastating quakes that rocked neighboring Kumamoto Prefecture in April.

Governors, however, have no legal authority to order nuclear reactors to be taken offline. Endit