The Onagawa nuclear power plant on Japan's northeastern coast -
the closest plant to the epicentre of the massive earthquake and
tsunami of 11 March 2011 - suffered remarkably little damage, a
mission from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has
concluded. |The Onagawa plant (Image: Tohoku) The 19-strong
mission - comprising IAEA staff, members of national regulators
and external experts - has delivered its initial report
following a two-week visit to Japan, which included a visit to
the three-unit plant in Miyagi Prefecture. The team's objective
was to observe how different structures, systems and components
of the plant responded to the earthquake. All three boiling
water reactors at Onagawa automatically shut down, as designed,
when the earthquake occurred. Onagawa 1 briefly suffered a fire
in the non-nuclear turbine building. They have since remained
offline. The plant sustained far less damage than expected,
considering the magnitude of the earthquake and the height of
the subsequent tsunami. A