Japan, Nuclear Power Plant | featured news

This week's power outage at Japan's tsunami-crippled nuclear plant may have been caused by a rat Masayuki Ono, spokesman for Tokyo Electric Power Co., the utility that runs the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, says a 15-centimeter (6-inch) rat was found dead Wednesday near a switchboard. He says the rat may be linked to the power failure, but that more investigation is needed to be sure.

The released videos offer the first minute-by-minute account of the last-ditch effort to avert what would become the worst nuclear calamity since Chernobyl.

Japan's Fukushima nuclear crisis was a preventable disaster resulting from "collusion" among the government, regulators and the plant operator, an expert panel said on Thursday, wrapping up an inquiry into the worst nuclear accident in 25 years.

Kansai Electric Power Co on Sunday restarted the 1,180-megawatt No. 3 unit at its Ohi atomic plant, the utility said, Japan's first nuclear reactor to come back online since the Fukushima crisis, despite public safety concerns.

Japan’s government on Wednesday approved a 1 trillion yen ($12.55 billion) bailout for the operator of the disaster-hit Fukushima nuclear plant, putting the massive utility under temporary state control as it continues to deal with the colossal damages.

The damage to the core of at least one of the meltdown-stricken reactors at Fukushima could be far worse than previously thought.

Japan's prime minister ordered workers to remain at the tsunami-crippled Fukushima nuclear plant last March as fears mounted of a "devil's chain reaction" that would force tens of millions of people to flee Tokyo, a new investigative report shows.

Japanese officials unveiled a decades-long plan Wednesday to decommission the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, where reactor cooling systems failed after the country's devastating earthquake and tsunami in March.

A Japanese government panel says it will take at least 30 years to safely close the tsunami-hobbled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant.

Japan says the crippled reactors at its tsunami-damaged nuclear power plant have reached stability more than four months ago after the disaster.