The municipal assembly in Satsumasendai, Kagoshima Prefecture, voted Tuesday to approve the restart of the local nuclear power station, another step forward in the fraught process of reviving an industry left idled by the 2011 Fukushima catastrophe.
The city of 100,000 that hosts the two-reactor Sendai plant operated by Kyushu Electric Power Co. has long relied on the facility for government subsidies and jobs.
In September, the plant became the first nuclear facility to meet beefed-up post-Fukushima safety requirements.