N-disaster response drill held around Sendai plant in Kagoshima

February 3, 2018

Satsumasendai, Kagoshima Pref.- About 4,400 people joined a nuclear disaster response drill held Saturday under the assumption that a serious accident occurred at Kyushu Electric Power Co.'s Sendai power plant in Satsumasendai, Kagoshima Prefecture.

Jointly organized by the Kagoshima prefectural government and nine municipalities located within 30 kilometers of the nuclear plant, the drill proceeded with scenarios that the No. 1 and No. 2 reactors of the plant entirely lost external power supplies after being hit by a strong earthquake measuring the maximum reading of 7 on the Japanese seismic intensity scale and that radioactive substances leaked.

Among some 1,800 participating local residents, those living within 5 kilometers of the plant were asked to flee first by bus and by own car in accordance with evacuation plans prepared by authorities in advance. The other residents evacuated next.

As part of the drill, the third of its kind since the plant's restart in August 2015, a nursey school in the city of Ichikikushikino, which neighbors Satsumasendai, called six parents and asked them to pick up their children. This was the first children pickup exercise assuming a nuclear disaster, local authorities said.

A working woman who came to pick up her one-year-old daughter said, "I can get here quickly because my workplace is near, but parents living far away may be difficult to come." Jiji Press