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TOKYO (Reuters) - Tokyo Electric Power Co, the operator of the tsunami-crippled Fukushima power plant, shut its last operating nuclear reactor on Monday for regular maintenance, leaving just one running reactor supplying Japan's creaking power sector. Japan has 54 reactors, but since the tsunami last March triggered the world's worst nuclear crisis in 25 years at the Fukushima plant, it has been unable to restart any reactors that have undergone maintenance due to public safety concerns. Tepco said it shutdown the No.6 reactor at its Kashiwazaki Kariwa plant, the world's biggest nuclear power plant, raising concerns about a power crunch this summer when electricity demand peaks due to hot weather.

After the March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami crippled Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, worry about the unfolding nuclear accident quickly commandeered international headlines.

After being tossed about and damaged by the tsunami that devastated northeastern Japan on March 11, Japan's drilling ship the Chikyu has been given an especially fitting assignment: to drill into the fault zone and take temperature measurements near the epicentre of the magnitude-9.0 Tohoku earthquake that caused the tsunami. It will be the first time that researchers have drilled into an underwater fault soon after a quake. The aim of the exercise is to solve a decades-old mystery about the part that friction plays in such an event

After being tossed about and damaged by the tsunami that devastated northeastern Japan on March 11, Japan's drilling ship the Chikyu has been given an especially fitting assignment: to drill into the fault zone and take temperature measurements near the epicentre of the magnitude-9.0 Tohoku earthquake that caused the tsunami. It will be the first time that researchers have drilled into an underwater fault soon after a quake.

TOKYO, Oct 28 (Reuters) - Japan will likely need more than30 years to dismantle the tsunami-crippled Fukushima nuclear [More]

* Japan's disaster sparked nuclear rethink worldwide * France also remains staunchly pro-nuclear in Europe By Louis Charbonneau UNITED NATIONS, Sept 23 (Reuters) - The catastrophe at Japan's Fukushima nuclear power complex should not be allowed to call into question of the wisdom of atomic energy, Czech President Vaclav Klaus said on Friday. "After the tsunami wave hit the Fukushima power plant, some governments decided not to build new nuclear power plants and some even to abandon nuclear energy as such," Klaus said in a speech to the U.N.

* Tsunami advisory lifted an hour after quake * Nuclear watchdog, Tepco: no impact on nuclear power plants [More]

By Quirin Schiermeier of Nature magazine Radiation released by the tsunami-struck Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant could have long-lasting consequences for the natural environment in the vicinity of the damaged plant. Scientists estimate that in the first 30 days after the accident on 11 March, trees, birds and forest-dwelling mammals were exposed to daily doses up to 100 times greater-and fish and marine algae to doses several thousand times greater - than are generally considered safe. Radioecologists with the French Institute of Radioprotection and Nuclear Safety (ISRN) in Cadarache converted concentrations of radioisotopes measured in the soil and seawater into the actual doses that various groups of wildlife were likely to have received

* No damage reported at Fukushima plant * Tsunami warning lifted, workers return [More]

For a complete list of our coverage, see our In-Depth Report " The Japan Earthquake, Tsunami and Nuclear Crisis "

If the recent events in Japan were a movie, we'd say that the plot was too outlandishly catastrophic to be true--first an earthquake, then a tsunami, then a nuclear accident. Watching footage of entire neighborhoods being shoveled inland by roiling water, and knowing that those buildings and vehicles contained people, was horrifying.But while the citizens of Japan continue to struggle with their own personal hell, many

By Taiga Uranaka and Ki Joon Kwon FUKUSHIMA, Japan, March 14 (Reuters) - Japan scrambled to avert a meltdown at a stricken nuclear plant on Monday after a hydrogen explosion at one reactor and exposure of fuel rods at another, just days after a devastating earthquake and tsunami that killed at least 10,000 people. Roads and rail, power and ports have been crippled across much of Japan's northeast and estimates of the cost of the multiple disasters have leapt to as much as $170 billion