Following its reactivation earlier this year, a nuclear disaster drill was held around the country's sole working nuclear power plant on Sunday.
About 3,600 officials and residents took part in the event to prepare for the possibility of a serious accident within 30 km (18 miles) of Kyushu Electric Power Co.'s Sendai plant in Kagoshima Prefecture. The last time a major drill was held around the plant was in October 2013.
The drill assumed that a strong earthquake with an intensity of upper 6 on the Japanese scale of 7 had caused the plant to lose power and become unable to cool its reactors. About 1,200 residents within 5 km (3 miles) of the plant were evacuated by bus and other vehicles.
People farther than 5 km but within 30 km were instructed to move in accordance with a prefectural-run system to determine how the wind was blowing to avoid areas with radioactive fallout.
At the two-reactor Sendai plant, situated in Satsumasendai, the No. 1 reactor resumed operation in August and the No. 2 unit in October.
All other reactors in Japan remain offline in the aftermath of the March 2011 triple meltdown in Fukushima.