Japan Atomic: may shut nuke reactor due to problem, no leak

02/05/2011 - 9:52

TOKYO (Reuters) - Electricity wholesaler Japan Atomic Power Co said on Monday it would consider shutting a reactor at its Tsuruga nuclear plant due to a technical problem, adding that there had been no radiation leak from the facility. The plant is around 450 km (280 miles) west of Tokyo in Fukui prefecture, an area that was not affected by a massive earthquake and subsequent tsunami that hit Japan on March 11.

The company said it had identified a possible leak of iodine from the 1,160-megawatt No.2 reactor's nuclear fuel assemblies into its coolant.

Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor complex, run by Tokyo Electric Power Co, was hit by the quake and tsunami, touching off the world's worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl in 1986 as radiation from damaged reactors spewed into the surroundings.

(Reporting by Osamu Tsukimori; Editing by Joseph Radford)