The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant(NPP) is owned by Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) located in Niigata Prefecture, Japan. In December 2017, the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) approved a review report based on new regulatory standards for reactors 6 and 7, prompting many criticism to the approval despite the continuing damage from the TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi NPP accident and before the completion of the verification of the accident.

Niigata Prefecture has set up three committees to examine the causes of the accident, impact on health and daily life, and evacuation, saying that it is necessary to investigate the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi NPP before discussing the restart of Kashiwazaki-Kariwa NPP operations. Since March 2020, a number of problems in nuclear protection and safety measures have been uncovered one after another, including the fact that several facilities for detecting intrusion by terrorists and other intruders were broken and that subsequent countermeasures were not fully functional. As a result, in April 2021, the NRA formally issued an administrative order to TEPCO prohibiting the transfer of nuclear fuel from the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa NPP.