Workers at Japan’s damaged Fukushima nuclear plant were evacuated on Wednesday following an urgent tsunami warning triggered by a powerful earthquake off Russia’s coast, operator TEPCO said.
The precautionary evacuation affected all workers and staff at the Fukushima Daiichi facility, though no abnormalities have been reported at the site, the company confirmed.
“We evacuated all our workers and employees urgently,” a TEPCO spokesperson told AFP, adding that “no abnormality was observed” at the installation.
The Fukushima Daiichi plant became the centre of one of modern history’s worst nuclear accidents when a devastating tsunami struck the area in 2011, causing extensive damage and radioactive leaks.
Japanese authorities are closely monitoring the situation as tsunami warnings remain in effect across the Pacific following the 8.8-magnitude earthquake that struck off Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula.
The plant continues decades-long cleanup and decommissioning work following the March 2011 disaster caused by a historic earthquake and tsunami.
TEPCO implemented the evacuation as a safety measure whilst Pacific-wide tsunami warnings prompted similar precautionary actions across the region.
The 2011 Fukushima disaster ranks alongside Chernobyl as one of the two most serious nuclear accidents in modern history.
(information from protothema.gr)
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