Matsuyama, Ehime Pref. –

A court Tuesday dismissed a petition seeking to halt operations at the No. 3 reactor of Shikoku Electric Power's Ikata nuclear power plant in Ehime Prefecture.

Hiroya Kikuchi, presiding judge at the Matsuyama District Court, rejected the petition filed by some 1,500 residents living near the nuclear plant in the town of Ikata over safety concerns, saying that a specific danger to the lives or bodies of the plaintiffs has not been proven.

The plaintiffs plan to appeal the ruling.

In similar lawsuits over the nuclear plant, Oita and Hiroshima district courts dismissed residents' petitions to halt its operations in March last year and early this month, respectively. The Iwakuni branch of the Yamaguchi District Court is currently hearing a similar case.

In Tuesday's ruling, Kikuchi said Shikoku Electric's calculation of the basic earthquake ground motion, which is the largest tremor assumed when designing nuclear plant facilities, was reasonable for the Ikata reactor.

He rejected the plaintiffs' claim that the company should have considered the possibility of a catastrophic eruption of the largest class ever, such as that which occurred at Mount Aso in Kumamoto Prefecture.

No concrete scientifically reasonable explanations have been identified regarding the possibility of such a huge eruption occurring during the reactor's operating period, Kikuchi said.

On the effectiveness of evacuation plans, the judge said that there is no need to consider whether they are reasonable because it cannot be said that there is a risk of a serious accident.

"There is nothing unreasonable" in the Nuclear Regulation Authority's decision that the reactor meets its safety standards, which are based on the latest knowledge in each field of expertise, the judge said.

In December 2017 and January 2020, the Hiroshima High Court issued provisional injunctions ordering Shikoku Electric to suspend operations at the Ikata reactor, but both were revoked following appeals by the company.