Court Rejects Petition to Halt Western Japan N-Reactor

Matsuyama, Ehime Pref., March 18 (Jiji Press)--A Japanese court Tuesday dismissed a petition seeking to halt operations at the No. 3 reactor of Shikoku Electric Power Co.'s Ikata nuclear power plant in the western prefecture of Ehime.

Hiroya Kikuchi, presiding judge at Matsuyama District Court, rejected the petition filed by some 1,500 residents near the nuclear plant in the town of Ikata over safety concerns, saying that a specific danger to the lives or bodies of the plaintiffs has not been proven.

The plaintiffs plan to appeal the ruling.

In similar lawsuits over the nuclear plant, Oita and Hiroshima district courts dismissed residents' petitions to halt its operations in March last year and early this month, respectively. The Iwakuni branch of Yamaguchi District Court is currently hearing a similar case.

In Tuesday's ruling, Kikuchi, the presiding judge, said that Shikoku Electric's calculation of the basic earthquake ground motion, which is the largest tremor assumed when designing nuclear plant facilities, was reasonable for the Ikata reactor.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]