A team of experts examining the geological formation under Japan's sole operating nuclear power plant remained split over whether an active fault runs beneath it after completing their second field survey Saturday.
Four of the group's five members, including Kunihiko Shimazaki, head of the investigation team and a commissioner of the Nuclear Regulation Authority, indicated they could not rule out the possibility that an active fault runs underneath two restarted reactors at Kansai Electric Power Co.'s Oi power plant in Fukui Prefecture.
But team member and Ritsumeikan University professor Atsumasa Okada said that what the experts had observed "can be explained as a landslide," noting the rock formation differs from active faults he has previously seen.