About 24 tons of spent nuclear fuel arrived Tuesday afternoon at a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant here after being delivered by cargo ship to a port in the village.
The 4,913-ton Rokuei Maru, escorted by a Japan Coast Guard patrol vessel, docked at around 7:30 a.m. in Mutsuogawara port amid heavy security.
The ship used four containers to carry the fuel, which hailed from Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima No. 2 plant in the towns of Tomioka and Naraha, Fukushima Prefecture, and from the Tokai No. 2 reactor in the village of Tokai, Ibaraki Prefecture, run by Japan Atomic Power Co.
Aomori prefectural and Rokkasho municipal officials boarded the ship to check the safety of the containers while a small group of activists staged a demonstration outside the port grounds.