Japan’s TEPCO suspends newly restarted nuclear facility
Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. announced Thursday that it will shut down a reactor at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant in Niigata Prefecture, northwest of Tokyo, after an alarm was triggered during control rod withdrawal operations following its restart, Kyodo reported.
The No.6 unit, the first reactor TEPCO has restarted since the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, resumed operations on Wednesday, a day later than initially planned, after a control rod alarm sounded during a final pre-startup test.
At 12:28 am Thursday, the operator said it suspended control rod withdrawal operations at the just-restarted unit.
TEPCO said it was looking into what happened. The Nuclear Regulation Authority confirmed the reactor remains stable and reported no safety concerns.
Control rods are used to adjust the nuclear fission of a reactor. According to the Niigata prefectural government, no abnormal levels of radioactivity were detected around the seven-unit complex.
The No. 6 unit was reactivated at 7:02 p.m. on Wednesday and reached criticality, a controlled self-sustaining nuclear fission chain reaction, around 90 minutes later.
Earlier, it was reported that Japan restarted 1st reactor at world’s largest nuclear plant since Fukushima disaster.