KASHIWAZAKI, Niigata Prefecture -- A small electrical fire broke out in a conference room at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant in the early hours of January 17 and was quickly contained.
Employees heard the fire alarm go off at around 3: 41 a.m. rushed to the meeting room on the second floor of a designated building with an anti-quake seismic isolation system and saw a laptop computer engulfed in flames.
They called emergency services and battled the fire themselves.
Five fire engines and an ambulance were dispatched to the scene. The fire was under control by 4: 13 a.m.
One person's personal computer and part of a table were burnt, but no one was injured. There was no sign of a leakage of radioactive material, according to officials.
TEPCO said the fire apparently started near where the computer's display and keyboard connect.
The building was built in 2009, two years after the 2007 Chuetsu offshore earthquake, as an operating base in the event of a disaster.
The structure did not meet the new seismic standards set out by the Fukushima No. after the 2011 nuclear accident. 1 power plant.
The reactors at the plant are currently idle, but TEPCO aims to resume the facility's operations in or after this summer.