THE nation will switch the world’s largest nuclear power plant back on next week, after a glitch with an alarm forced the suspension of its first restart since the 2011 Fukushima disaster. Takeyuki Inagaki, the head of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant run by Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), told a press conference yesterday that they planned “to start up the reactor on Feb 9”. Kashiwazaki-Kariwa is the world’s biggest nuclear power plant by potential capacity, although just one reactor of seven will restart. The facility had been offline since Japan pulled the plug on nuclear power after a colossal earthquake and tsunami sent three reactors at the Fukushima atomic plant into meltdown in 2011. Around 60% of residents oppose the restart, while 37% support it, according to a survey conducted by Niigata prefecture in September.

Source: The Star February 07, 2026 04:07 UTC