A new draft report presented to the United Nations by a team from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) finds that the Onagawa Nuclear Power Station, which is located closest to the epicenter of the March 2011 earthquake, was “remarkably undamaged” by the impact of the earthquake. “The structural elements of the NPS were remarkably undamaged given the magnitude of ground motion experienced and the duration and size of this great earthquake.” In a press release on the report, the IAEA noted: “The Onagawa Nuclear Power Station is 120 kilometers north of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant that was severely damaged during the seismic event, when the building housing the plant exploded and three of its nuclear reactors suffered a meltdown in what was reported to be the worst nuclear accident since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. A year later, a 19-kilometer exclusion zone still surrounds the disaster site.”

The team of IAEA experts found that while the Onagawa plant “experienced very high levels of ground shaking – among the strongest any plant affected by the earthquake – and some flooding from the tsunami that followed, but was able to shut down safely.” Findings from the visual investigation of Onagawa, not possible with the Fukushima Daiichi plant because of the severe damage, “will be added to an IAEA database being compiled by the International Seismic Safety Center as part of the IAEA’s Action Plan for Nuclear Safety endorsed by the Agency’s Member States following the Fukushima Daiichi event.”