Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori on Saturday presided over a large-scale nuclear accident drill at a nuclear power plant in Shimane Prefecture involving around 12,000 local residents.
The drill was the first to be conducted under the terms of the Special Measures Law for Nuclear Accidents, which took effect in June and requires the government to conduct a comprehensive drill every year.
The law was instituted in the wake of Japan's worst ever nuclear accident, which occurred in September last year at a nuclear-fuel-processing plant in Tokai, Ibaraki Prefecture.
Saturday's drill simulated an accident at Chugoku Electric Power Co.'s nuclear power plant in Kashima. The drill was conducted on the premise that the main water feeder pump had shut down, cutting off the supply of cooling water, damaging the reactor core and releasing radiation.