Word: plant
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Earthquake ruins houses, shuts nuclear plant...
...missing. That's far less than a 2004 quake that struck the same area and killed more than 60 while leaving 16,000 homeless. But instead of feeling relief, the entire country has been rattled by TV images of black smoke billowing from Niigata's Kashiwazaki Kariwa nuclear power plant, located just 9km (5.6 miles) from the epicenter in the Sea of Japan. The plant suffered a string of problems when the temblor struck. Tokyo Electric, the Kashiwazaki plant's owner/operator, was quick to point out that a smoky fire that broke out in an electric transformer posed no threat...
...used to cool the reactors had spilled, the company suspects, from a spent-fuel pool and into the nearby ocean. Tokyo Electric also announced that 100 drums containing radioactive solid waste were toppled, and some radioactive material was detected in one of the main exhaust pipes that emit the plant's treated emissions into the open air. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe criticized the company for failing to respond quickly enough in the quake's aftermath. Tokyo Electric President Tsunehisa Katsumata apologized, saying "We were not aware of the dangers." He added that Monday was a national holiday, which delayed...
...amount of radioactivity escaping into the environment from the water and exhaust leaks was reportedly minuscule and posed no threat to people or the surrounding area. But questions are being raised over the safety of 16 other nuclear plants located throughout Japan, a nation that lies atop numerous active fault lines. The intensity of Monday's quake was 2.5 times the level the power plant's structures were built to sustain without any damage...
...because Japan depends heavily upon nuclear power for electricity, it's unlikely much can or will be changed. "Building a reasonably quake-resistant plant is way too costly to be truly realistic," says Hiroyuki Nagasawa, a management-systems professor at Osaka Prefecture University. "Nothing short of reevaluating our energy policy will change the current situation, but we have much bigger political powers working to keep the plants running." The country has been spared a quake-related nuclear calamity so far. Citizens can only hope their luck holds...