Japan quake city orders nuclear plant to stay shut

KARIWA, Japan, July 18 (Reuters) A Japanese nuclear power plant was ordered to stay closed until safety was assured after an earthquake caused radiation leaks, while the UN nuclear watchdog said the operator had misjudged the risks.

Just hours after the order on Wednesday, Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) revised up the level of radiation it said had leaked into the ocean, one of about 50 problems it reported at its Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant after Monday's tremor.

''It's clear that this earthquake, as TEPCO, the operating company, indicated, was stronger than what the reactor was designed for,'' International Atomic Energy Agency head Mohamed ElBaradei told reporters in Kuala Lumpur.

ElBaradei urged a thorough probe to find out what went wrong at the world's biggest nuclear power plant.

The leaks into the ocean and atmosphere from the plant in the northwestern city of Kashiwazaki, near the epicentre of the 6.8 magnitude quake, have renewed fears about the safety of Japan's nuclear industry.

A man's body was found under a collapsed temple building late today, media said, bringing the death toll from the earthquake to ten.

Roads at the nuclear plant complex were buckled and deeply cracked, while white steam emerged from one facility on site.

The nuclear power sector, which supplies almost one-third of Japan's electricity, has been tarnished by years of cover-ups of accidents and fudged safety records.

That record worried residents in the quake-hit area, which had suffered another big tremor in 2004 that killed 65 people.

''We've had two big ones in three years,'' said 60-year-old Hoshi Murofushi, who was sheltering with her two grandchildren in an evacuation centre in nearby Kariwa.

''There's no guarantee that there won't be another one. It will be too late if we have another Chernobyl.'' MISCALCULATION TEPCO said it had miscalculated and underreported the amount of radiation in 1,200 litres of water that had leaked from the power plant, but that the leak was still within government safety regulations and posed no threat to the environment.

''I apologise for causing you worry and trouble,'' TEPCO president, Tsunehisa Katsumata, dressed in blue overalls, told Kashiwazaki Mayor Hiroshi Aida as he bowed in apology.

Another TEPCO official bowed as he accepted a written order from Aida not to re-start the plant until safety could be ensured.

TEPCO asked six utilities for supplies of electricity to help fill an anticipated shortage from the shutdown, a company official said. Shares in the company fell 4 per cent today, their biggest drop in five months.

The tremor flattened hundreds of homes, injured more than 1,100 people and thousands more are in evacuation centres.

Senior officials, including Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, have criticised TEPCO, saying it had been slow to issue information and risked undermining public trust in the nuclear industry.

But Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki also said it was important not to cause unnecessary concern.

''There were media reports this morning that 50 problems had been found,'' he told reporters on Wednesday. ''But I asked about the content and while there were various problems, most were not directly linked to radiation emissions,'' he said.

Quake-proofing regulations for nuclear power stations were tightened last year, requiring utilities to reassess the risks for their reactors.

One expert said the incident, though small in scale, meant Japan needed stronger safety standards.

''This is not an amount that needs to be worried about,'' said Tetsuji Imanaka, Assistant Professor at the Research Reactor Institute, Kyoto University, of the miscalculated leak.

''What's more of a concern is why it happened.'' Akira Fukushima, deputy director general of Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, said he could not rule out the possibility that an active faultline extended under the plant.

REUTERS SM KN1902