July 18, 2007 (LPAC)--The seven-unit Kashiwazaki nuclear plant, the world's largest in output, withstood the 6.8 magnitude earthquake July 16, while the surrounding area was severely damaged. Nine people died in the quake, 1,000 were injured, and 13,000 residents are in temporary shelters. Tens of thousands of homes were reported to be without water or power.

The Kashiwazaki nuclear plants shut down automatically, as part of their anti-quake safety routine. There was a small fire at an electrical transformer at one of the units, which was extinguished. A leak of water from a tank at one unit produced screaming press headlines about a "radioactive leak," but the water is radioactive at 1 billionth of the allowable level. Some drums containing low-level waste products were overturned in the quake, but TEPCO reported no radioactivity leak to the environment.

Nuclear provides 30 percent of Japan's electricity, and Japan has plans to increase this percentage and pursue fast reactors--breeders--as the next-generation standard plant. Its nuclear program has long been the target of anti-nuclear groups, which have used every possible occasion to sow fear, this earthquake being no exception. The government criticized the plant management for not announcing the minor problems sooner.

Japan's 55 nuclear plants are earthquake-hardened because Japan is in a very high earthquake zone. The Japanese government reportedly is reviewing the earthquake standards and increasing the quake-resistance of the non-nuclear equipment like electrical transformers, to bring them up to the quake-resistance of the reactor cores.

Kashiwazaki is 160 miles northwest of Tokyo, and is operated by TEPCO, the Tokyo Electric Power Company. Five of the nuclear plants are conventional boiling water reactors, and the two most recent units, built by General Electric, are advanced boiling water designs, at 1,350 megawatts each.