TOKYO, May 9, 2011 (AFP) - The operator of Japan's Hamaoka nuclear plant, located near a tectonic faultline southwest of Tokyo, Monday said it would temporarily shut down its reactors as requested by Prime Minister Naoto Kan.Kan last Friday called for the closure of the plant, eight weeks after a massive quake and tsunami damaged the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant northeast of Tokyo, sparking the world's worst atomic crisis since Chernobyl in 1986.
Seismologists have long warned that a major quake is far overdue in the Tokai region southwest of Tokyo where the Hamaoka plant is located. It is only 200 kilometres (125 miles) from the capital and megacity of Tokyo.
The Hamaoka plant has five reactor units, but only two are currently running -- numbers four and five. Reactors one and two, built in the 1970s, were stopped in 2009, and three is undergoing maintenance.
"We have decided to halt operations of the number four and five reactors and postpone the restart of the number three reactor at the Hamaoka nuclear power plant," said Chubu Electric Power Co. president Akihisa Mizuno.
"We consider that the prime minister's request was very serious," he said, announcing the decision after a series of board meetings. Source
