The president of Chubu Electric Power Co., Japan's third-largest utility, said that he and the chairperson are resigning to take responsibility over the company's yearslong manipulation of earthquake safety data for two nuclear reactors and that the operator will withdraw applications to restart them.
Japan has been gradually restarting some of the 54 nuclear reactors it shuttered in 2011, after the Fukushima disaster, when a 9.0 earthquake off Japan’s northeastern coast and a subsequent tsunami caused meltdowns at three reactors operated by Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, or TEPCO.
Chubu Electric President Kingo Hayashi said that an outside investigative panel found that the utility had for years provided manipulated seismic data for its Hamaoka No. 3 and No. 4 reactors to ensure the figures met requirements.
With the credibility of the safety data in serious question, the utility has decided to drop the pending restart application for the two reactors, Hayashi said.
img: Cubu Electric Power Co., CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons