SUPPORTERS and opponents of nuclear power united in anger with government officials yesterday after a leak forced the shutdown of a power plant.
The beleaguered state run firm, the Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel Development Corp (PNC), was ordered to halt operations at its Fugen reactor in western Japan after it emerged that it had waited 30 hours before reporting a radiation leak that occurred on Monday.
Local government officials in Fukui Prefecture said 11 workers were exposed to small doses of radiation in the accident.
The amount of radiation the workers were exposed to was within permissible limits," one official said.
The incident was seized upon by nuclear power opponents, who question the government's plan to boost dependency on atomic plants to 42 per cent of total capacity by 2010. Japan has virtually no oil or natural gas to provide electric power.
The PNC already faces legal action over its cover up of key details of an accident last month at a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant north east of Tokyo.
In what has become a ritual for the company, it admitted it had erred and apologised. It shut down the plant on Tuesday night.
A government spokesman, Mr Seiroku Kajiyama, said the state run body "should be dismantled and start again from scratch".
Mr Kajiyama's comments echoed those of the head of the Citizens Nuclear Information Centre, Japan's largest anti nuclear organisation.
"Let's say sayonara to the PNC. Now, instead of saying clean up your act we should be telling the firm to please go away," said Mr Jinzaburo Takagi, head of the centre.