IAEA Mission Reviews Safety Assessment at Ohi Nuclear Power Plant

IAEA Mission Reviews Safety Assessment at Ohi Nuclear Power Plant

Japanese officials from the Ohi Nuclear Power Plant brief IAEA team members about the plant's battery inverter equipment, part of the plant's safety system, 26 January 2011. (Photo: G. Webb/IAEA)

Story Resources

• Photo Gallery: IAEA Review Mission in Japan, 23-31 January 2012
• IAEA Review Mission Arrives in Japan, 23 January 2012
• IAEA Review Mission to Visit Japan, 17 January 2012
• IAEA Action Plan on Nuclear Safety, 5 September 2011
• In Focus: Action Plan on Nuclear Safety
• IAEA Nuclear Safety Action Plan Dashboard
• In Focus: Strengthening Safety at Nuclear Facilities
• IAEA Department of Nuclear Safety and Security
• Listen to this story

An IAEA expert mission today visited a Japanese nuclear energy station as part of the team's mission to review Japan's process for assessing safety at the nation's nuclear power plants.
The Ohi Nuclear Power Plant on Japan's west coast was the first to complete a safety assessment required by Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) in the aftermath of the March 2011 accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. The IAEA International Complementary Safety Assessment Review Mission visited the site as part of its review of NISA's safety assessment process.
"The staff at Ohi gave us an impressive tour of many of the measures designed to protect the plant from extreme natural hazards, such as earthquakes and tsunamis," said Team Leader James Lyons, Director of the IAEA's Nuclear Installation Safety Division. "Our visit gave us a much better understanding of how Japanese utilities are implementing the safety assessment instructions they have received from NISA."
The 10-member IAEA expert mission began in Tokyo on 23 January and will complete its work on 31 January, when it will deliver a preliminary report to Japanese officials. The mission was requested by the Japanese government in 2011, following the approval of the Nuclear Safety Action Plan by all IAEA Member States in September 2011. The Action Plan defines a programme of work to strengthen the global nuclear safety framework, and it calls for nations to promptly undertake a national assessment of the design of nuclear power plants against extreme natural hazards and to implement corrective actions as needed.
-- By Greg Webb, IAEA Division of Public Information