The Tokyo Electric Power Company announced that the number 6 reactor at the Kashiwazaki Kariwa plant in Niigata Prefecture was shut down early Monday.
The incident leaves only one of Japan’s 54 nuclear reactors in operation, which is also due to be switched off in May.
The reactors have been turned off for routine maintenance but local communities have refused to allow them to be restarted because of safety fears.
The Japanese nuclear crisis broke out on March 11, 2011 after a nine-magnitude earthquake and a subsequent tsunami hit Japan’s northeast coast, where Fukushima nuclear power plant is located.
The quake triggered the nuclear disaster by knocking out power to cooling systems and resulting in reactor meltdowns at the nuclear plant.
Before the disaster, about one-third of Japan’s electricity was generated with nuclear power.
Tokyo has increased its fossil fuel imports but electricity companies have warned that there could still be a shortfall of power in the summer.
—-Agencies