Shikoku Electric Power Co. will restart Thursday afternoon a nuclear reactor in Ehime Prefecture in western Japan that has been offline since December 2019 for a regular checkup and then under a subsequent court injunction.

The utility will restart the No. 3 reactor at the Ikata nuclear power plant by removing the rod which controls the fission rate of the nuclear fuel.

The Hiroshima High Court handed down an injunction in January 2020 banning the reactor from operating over safety concerns.

The high court's decision was based on its view that Shikoku Electric's and the Nuclear Regulation Authority's rules and risk assessment for a possible disastrous eruption of Mt. Aso, about 130 kilometers away, were inadequate.

In March, however, the court reversed its earlier order in response to an objection from Shikoku Electric and allowed it to restart the reactor.

Shikoku Electric was initially due to restart the reactor in mid-October, but was forced to postpone the move after announcing in July this year that one of its staff on night duty at the Ikata plant went to a gas station outside of the facility without permission on five occasions between 2017 and 2019, breaching safety regulations.

It gained approval of Ehime Gov. Tokihiro Nakamura in mid-November to restart the reactor after providing all its staff on night duty with smartphones featuring global positioning system functions in order to prevent the recurrence of such incidents.

==Kyodo

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