Japanese demo demands end to nuclear power

Thousands of Japanese demanded an end to nuclear power on a march in Tokyo Sunday after the 11 March disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. Organisers estimated 5,000 took part in the demonstration which called for a switch to alternative energy.

Reuters/Kim Kyung-Hoon

Radiation leaks have forced the evacuation of some 80,000 people within 20 kilometres of the site following the accident which followed the earthquake and tsunami which hit the country, leaving 26,000 dead or missing.

Around 2,000 people took part in a separate anti-nuclear demonstration under the slogan "Anti-Tepco" – a reference to the operator of the atomic plant – which took place at the same time a few kilometres away at Shiba Park.

Before the tsunami which led to the shutdown of a dozen reactors, nearly 30 per cent of Japan's electricity was generated from nuclear power.

In France a group of green campaigners have been on hunger strike since Monday, calling for the closure of a nuclear power station at Fessenheim in the east of the country and an end to nuclear power within 10 years, despite claims that the nuclear power programme is safe.

And Switzerland will stop building nuclear power stations and could end all nuclear power within 30 years, Economy Minister Johann Schneider-Ammann told Le Matin Dimanche newspaper Sunday.