TEPCO Chief to Meet with Niigata Gov. for 1st Time

July 27, 2018

Niigata- Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. said Thursday that its President Tomoaki Kobayakawa will hold talks with Niigata Governor Hideyo Hanazumi for the first time on Aug. 2.

Kobayakawa will visit Hanazumi at the government office of Niigata Prefecture, central Japan, where TEPCO's Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant remains shut down.

Hanazumi, who assumed the post of governor in June, has expressed his determination to establish the cause of the March 2011 accident at TEPCO's Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, carrying on a study commissioned by the former governor, Ryuichi Yoneyama.

Yoneyama, who stepped down in April, refused to consider the restart of operations at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant until the cause of the Fukushima disaster and its impact on local residents is ascertained.

Hanazumi has also indicated that he will not discuss the restart until the results of the investigation come out.

Kobayakawa, along with other TEPCO executives, will also visit the city of Kashiwazaki and the village of Kariwa, which the nuclear plant straddles, on Aug. 2 and meet with the mayors of the respective municipalities, Masahiro Sakurai and Hiroo Shinada. Jiji Press