A court on Thursday rejected a lawsuit seeking to halt the operation of a nuclear reactor in western Japan amid safety concerns, finding that the earthquake and volcano risk assessments conducted by the plant operator were reasonable.
In the ruling delivered by the Oita District Court regarding the operation of Shikoku Electric Power Co.'s No. 3 unit at the Ikata nuclear power plant in Ehime Prefecture, Presiding Judge Maiko Takechi said the court does not see any "specific danger" that threatens the lives of the plaintiffs in Oita Prefecture, which faces Ehime across the Seto Inland Sea.
The plaintiffs filed an appeal against the district court judgement with the Fukuoka High Court the same day.
The case is among a series of similar lawsuits filed against the reactor -- the sole operating reactor at the plant -- despite it meeting the country's strengthened safety standards introduced in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.
Injunctions were issued against the reactor by the Hiroshima High Court in 2017 and 2020 in two petitions filed by residents including from Hiroshima and Yamaguchi prefectures, but the same court subsequently reversed the decisions.
The Oita lawsuit was filed in 2016 by residents who called for in-depth surveys to find out whether there are active faults in the vicinity of the Ikata plant and to conduct a more thorough analysis of the possible impact of a massive eruption of Mt. Aso in Kumamoto Prefecture, which is located about 130 kilometers away.
Shikoku Electric has said its sonic prospecting has not showed the existence of an active fault near the plant, while dismissing the need for a three-dimensional survey to look into the underground structure as requested by the plaintiffs.
The power company has also played down concerns that pyroclastic flows would reach the reactor even in the event of a catastrophic eruption of Mt. Aso.
The Ikata complex had three reactors in operation before the Fukushima nuclear disaster, which was triggered by a massive earthquake and tsunami that devastated northeastern Japan in March 2011.
The plant operator has decided to scrap the No. 1 and 2 units, while the No. 3 reactor has passed the post-Fukushima disaster safety screening process and was put back online in 2016.
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