TOKYO: The world's largest nuclear power plant resumed part of its operations on Saturday, two years after it was shut down following a strong earthquake off the Japanese coast, the operator said.One of seven reactors at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant, located 300 kilometres (185 miles) northwest of Tokyo, started test operations, said operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO). The company earlier said it would shift to full power generation at the reactor after up to 50 days of test runs."But it is still uncertain when we can resume operations at the remaining six reactors," Akemi Otsuki, a TEPCO spokeswoman, told. TEPCO decided on the move after the municipal governments gave the formal go-ahead, company officials said. The sprawling 8,200-megawatt plant has been dormant since July 2007 when a quake measuring 6.8 on the Richter scale struck in the Sea of Japan (East Sea), killing 15 people and injuring thousands. Public concern mounted when television footage showed white smoke coming from an electric transformer, while the operator said radioactive water had leaked into the ocean during the tremor.
Friday, August 14, 2009 MUMBAI: A 26-year-old woman died Thursday of H1N1 swine flu in the southern city of Bangalore, raising India's death toll from the virus to 20, authorities said.The death was the first reported in India's information technology capital, the Press Trust of India reported.Meanwhile in Pune, the worst-affected in India, two more victims of the virus died Thursday, raising the death toll in that western city near Mumbai to 12, the report said. The victims were an 11-month-old boy and a 75-year-old old woman.US media reported movie halls, schools and colleges were ordered closed Thursday for three days to a week in Mumbai, the commercial and financial capital of the country, as fear of the pandemic spread.Prajakata Lavangare, a spokeswoman for the government of Maharashtra state of which Mumbai is the capital, said similar orders were issued in Pune, which is also located in the state.The woman who died in Bangalore was identified only as Roopa, a teacher in...
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