TOKYO – Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. said Thursday it suspended work to withdraw control rods at the just-launched unit of a nuclear power plant northwest of Tokyo after an alarm went off.
TEPCO said it is looking into what happened at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear complex in Niigata Prefecture. The Nuclear Regulation Authority said the reactor is stable, adding that there are no safety problems.
Control rods are used to adjust the nuclear fission of a reactor.
No abnormal levels of radioactivity were detected around the seven-unit complex, according to the Niigata prefectural government.
The reactor is the first to be rebooted by TEPCO following the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster. The restart came on Wednesday, a day later than initially planned, after a control-rod alarm also sounded during a test at the last minute.
The alarm was triggered at 12:28 a.m. after equipment to maneuver the control rods apparently had an issue, according to TEPCO.
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.
BY: The Times Union – KYODO
