Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority Marks 10 Years

Tokyo, Sept. 19 (Jiji Press)--Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority on Monday marked 10 years since it was launched some 18 months after the country's worst nuclear accident.

The NRA, created based on the lessons learned from the former regulatory authorities' failure to prevent the March 2011 triple meltdowns at Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.'s <9501> tsunami-crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power station in northeastern Japan, boosted its presence through its nuclear reactor screenings under new stricter safety standards and its execution of the "right to recommend," which led to the scrapping of the "Monju" prototype fast-breeder reactor in the central Japan prefecture of Fukui.

Since the launch of the NRA in September 2012 under the government led by the now-defunct Democratic Party of Japan, 10 nuclear power reactors were brought back online while there is a case in which its screening has yet to finish more than nine years after the start of the examination.

Shunichi Tanaka, who was deputy head of the former Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute, served as the first chief of the NRA.

In July 2013, the NRA began reactor screenings under the new safety standards, which require power companies to put in place measures against severe nuclear accidents and call for stricter earthquake and tsunami assumptions.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]