Arab News Japan

TOKYO: More than 200 people demonstrated in the streets of Ginza in Tokyo on Sunday against the possibility of restarting the Tokai 2 nuclear power plant in Ibaraki Prefecture.

The Nuclear Regulatory Authority gave the green light for the plant to be restarted in 2018 after work to bring it up to safety standards. This was completed in December 2022.

Anti-nuclear activists and citizens of the Ibaraki region northeast of Tokyo plan to take legal action this month to demand that the plant is shut down, citing evacuation standards that cannot be complied with in the event of a serious nuclear accident.

Nearly a million people live within 30 kilometers of the Tokai nuclear power plant, which was built in 1978.

The Tokai plant has experienced four accidents, including two major ones. In the 1999 accident, 667 plant workers were exposed to high doses of radioactivity and two died as a result of improper handling in the fuel reprocessing plant.