Black smoke rising from Japan thermal power plant after explosion -NHK

TOKYO (Reuters) -An explosion was heard and black smoke was reported rising from the Taketoyo thermal power station in Aichi prefecture in central Japan, public broadcaster NHK reported on Wednesday.

Black smoke was coming from the thermal power plant's boiler facility, and the coal conveyor next to it was also on fire, according to NHK.

Firefighters were sent to the facility after receiving calls from witnesses, an official at the local fire department told Reuters.

There were no reports of injuries so far, local police told Reuters.

The power plant is run by JERA, Japan's top utility. JERA did not immediately reply to a Reuters request for a comment.

The Taketoyo plant's generation capacity is 1,070 MW, which is among the largest in Japan in terms of single unit output, according to the JERA website.

The plant is located about 40 km (25 miles) south of Nagoya, the biggest city in central Japan.

(Reporting by Satoshi Sugiyama, Mariko Katsumura, Kaori Kaneko and Kantaro Komiya; Writing by Katya Golubkova; Editing by Kim Coghill and Tom Hogue)