The six-member team will spend four days inside the giant, seven-reactor facility, located some 250 kilometres (155 miles) northwest of Tokyo, which is expected to be closed for at least a year for safety checks.

"Today is the first day on the plant, so we'll have a general approach of the plant and what went on," team leader Philippe Jamet told reporters as they entered the facility.

"Our aim today is to draw lessons from the earthquake that happened here, to share with the international community," said Jamet, director of the IAEA's Nuclear Installation Safety Division.

A powerful quake measuring 6.8 on the Richter scale hit central Japan on July 16, causing a fire in the section generating electricity for the plant. The nuclear reactors automatically shut down.

The operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., said radioactive water leaked into the Sea of Japan (East Sea) and radioactive particles blew out of an exhaust pipe filter.

Tokyo Electric, which is the world's largest private power company, said the radiation was far below amounts that would be dangerous but came under criticism for initially underreporting the severity of the incident.

The local government had requested the IAEA visit in hopes of easing public concerns. On Monday, they toured the area where the fire took place.

"The radiation leaks have no big impact on the environment, but it's important to send this information to the world. So it's important to confirm this through the IAEA investigation," Kashiwazaki Mayor Hiroshi Aida said.

The Japanese government took the rare step of rebuking foreign media coverage of the nuclear leak as sensationalistic after Italian soccer team Catania cancelled a tour of the country, citing worries about radiation.

"We are very satisfied at the agency that the Japanese government invited us so soon," the IAEA's Jamet said. "I think it's a good move from the Japanese government."

With the local tourism industry seriously hit by the incident, Koichi Sato, 59, who manages a beach hotel near the plant, said he hoped the UN inspection would allay people's fears.

"No matter how loud the power company says it's safe, it won't work," he said. "We have to have a third party verifying the safety and letting people know about it."

Japan is one of the most earthquake-prone nations, experiencing about 20 percent of the world's powerful tremors.

But despite the earthquakes and nuclear sensitivities, Japan has tried to step up its reliance on nuclear power as it has virtually no natural energy resources.

Nuclear power now accounts for nearly one-third of Japan's electricity, higher than in any other of the Group of Eight industrial nations except France.

Last month's earthquake destroyed hundreds of buildings and killed 11 people, although none of the deaths was linked to the nuclear plant.

earlier related report
Japan Looks To Ease Nuclear Concerns With IAEA Visit
Tokyo (AFP) Aug 5 - UN inspectors will Monday start examining damage to the world's largest nuclear power plant in Japan, which is hoping to ease safety concerns raised by a radiation leak that followed an earthquake. Although it is one of the most earthquake-prone countries, the world's second-largest economy has virtually no oil or gas resources and relies on nuclear energy for more than 30 percent of its electricity needs.

A powerful 6.8 Richter-scale quake hit central Japan on July 16, causing smoke to billow out from an electrical facility at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant, and leaking radioactive water into the Sea of Japan (East Sea).

Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. also said radioactive particles came out of an exhaust pipe filter at the plant, some 250 kilometres (155 miles) northwest of Tokyo in Niigata prefecture.

The company said the radiation from the leaks was far below levels people would naturally breathe in through the air, but the local government requested that the UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) visit.

"The accident created anxiety among the people and the prefecture has been hit hard by harmful rumours," Niigata Governor Hirohiko Izumida said.

The Japanese government took the unusual step of criticising foreign media coverage of the incident as exaggerated after Italian soccer club Catania cancelled a tour of the country, citing worries about radiation.

The government has said it will not impede the work of the inspectors, who arrived Sunday at Narita airport near Tokyo and are expected to stay at the nuclear facility until Thursday.

"To collect information and to identify the lesson to learn are the most important for the international community," Philippe Jamet, the director of the IAEA's Nuclear Installation Safety Division, told a television station on arrival.

Nuclear experts said the plant proved solid, and blamed human error for the leaks, singling out the failure to turn off a fan that apparently emitted the radioactive particles.

"At the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant, safety was basically assured because the reactors halted automatically," said Hideyuki Nakagawa, a nuclear energy expert at Fukui University.

"They stopped and cooled down, and the radiation was contained within the facility," he said. "There was a minimal amount of leakage, but human error was to blame."

Nakagawa, also chairman of the nuclear energy safety panel for Fukui prefecture, which hosts around a quarter of Japan's nuclear plants, said an important lesson was to prepare better for stronger than expected earthquakes.

Both the government and Tokyo Electric, which predicts its biggest plant will be down for at least a year pending checks, have acknowledged they did not anticipate such a strong earthquake.

Japan last year updated its guidelines for nuclear plants withstanding earthquakes, the first revision in 25 years.

But Baku Nishio, co-director of the Citizen's Nuclear Information Center which is critical of nuclear power, said the revised guidelines were not good enough.

"When you create guidelines, you have to decide where to draw a line about how strictly operators seek earthquake-proof safety," he said. "But they still don't have the clear data to do so."

Nishio criticised the earlier safety review at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant as "clearly too lax."

Japan is particularly sensitive about nuclear issues because of the US atomic attacks at the end of World War II, which killed more than 210,000 people. Tens of thousands more later died from radiation and horrific burns.

The IAEA inspectors will, coincidentally, start their work on the anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing.

But Fukui University's Nakagawa said nuclear energy was essential for Japan.

"Japan absolutely needs nuclear power as one of the backbone sources of energy," he said. "Of course safety comes first, but the country would not function without nuclear energy."

Related Links
Nuclear Power News - Nuclear Science, Nuclear Technology
Powering The World in the 21st Century at Energy-Daily.com

Memory Foam Mattress Review

SPACE MEDIA NETWORK PROMOTIONS Solar Energy Solutions Tempur-Pedic Mattress Comparison ... Newsletters :: SpaceDaily :: SpaceWar :: TerraDaily :: Energy Daily XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News