KYODO NEWS - Mar 20, 2018 - 11:54 | Urgent, All

A district court in southwestern Japan on Tuesday rejected local residents' request to suspend the planned restart of nuclear reactors in Saga Prefecture over safety concerns.

Some 70 people sought an injunction to halt the restart of the Nos. 3 and 4 reactors at the Genkai nuclear power plant of Kyushu Electric Power Co., scheduled for Friday and May, respectively, questioning safety standards and citing the risks of a volcanic eruption in the region.

But the Saga District Court's Presiding Judge Takeshi Tachikawa said the utility's safety measures are "reasonable" and that the court found "no specific risk of (the reactors) causing serious damage."

The decision was in sharp contrast with a Hiroshima High Court ruling in December to halt the planned restart of a reactor of Shikoku Electric Power Co.'s Ikata plant on the grounds of a possible eruption of Mt. Aso.

As the 1,592-meter volcano is located some 130 kilometers from the Ikata plant, almost the same distance as from the Genkai plant, attention was on how the Saga court would evaluate the risk.

During the trial, the plaintiffs from Saga, Fukuoka, Nagasaki, Kumamoto and Yamaguchi prefectures expressed doubt about the credibility of the new safety standards introduced after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, saying they were compiled when the Fukushima crisis had yet to be resolved.

The plaintiffs also claimed that there is no measure to respond to a catastrophic volcanic eruption which cannot be forecasted.

Kyushu Electric argued it has taken safety steps and that there is no imminent danger of a serious accident.

In June last year, Judge Tachikawa dismissed a similar request from a different group of local residents for an injunction to stop the restart of the two Genkai plant reactors.

Separate from the lawsuits seeking injunctions, some 10,000 people in Japan and abroad have filed a suit demanding suspension of the Genkai reactors.