Chubu Electric Power Co. on Wednesday held a disaster drill, open to the media at its Hamaoka nuclear power plant in Omaezaki, Shizuoka Prefecture, in preparation for a magnitude-9.0 quake in central to western Japan.
The Hamaoka power plant is at risk, should a major earthquake strike the Nankai Trough off the Pacific coast of central and western Japan.
The drill assumed an earthquake with an intensity of 7 — the top level on the Japanese seismic scale — hit the prefecture, knocking out power throughout the station. The hypothetical quake damaged power lines running from the reactor building to the power supply outside, hindering the use of emergency power generators.