World

Japan PM orders 2 surviving nuclear reactors scrapped

23:11 pm on 19 September 2013

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has ordered the scrapping of two Fukushima nuclear reactors that survived the 2011 tsunami.

He also said he stood by his commitments to the International Olympic Committee of insuring a safe 2020 Summer Games.

Mr Abe was speaking after a tour of the plant in which he told Tokyo Electric Power to set a time frame for dealing with leaking contaminated water, reports Reuters.

The prime minister said in order for them to concentrate on this, he had directed the company to decommission the No 5 and No 6 reactors.

A tsunami hit the Fukushima Daiichi plant in March, 2011, causing fuel-rod meltdowns, radioactive contamination of air, sea and food and triggering the evacuation of 160,000 people in the world's worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl in 1986.