[Yonhap News Photo]
Four reactors have been shut down for safety checks in a nuclear power plant near the epicenter of an earthquake that rocked South Korea's southeastern region, operators said Tuesday.
The region around Gyeongju hit by a magnitude-5.8 tremor on Monday has a dozen reactors in South Korea's largest nuclear power complex in Gori and other complexes.
It was the strongest tremor to date since South Korea started collecting quake-related data.
Four reactors in Wolseong saw operations suspended for safety checks while other reactors were running normally.
The Korea Nuclear Power Co. said nuclear power plants have been built to withstand an earthquake with a magnitude of up to 7.0. However, an emergency government team was formed to check nuclear plants after President Park Geun-hye expressed concern about their safety.
For decades, South Korea, which has almost no reserves of fossil fuels on its territory, has pushed for a nuclear energy program. It now has 23 nuclear reactors in operation, which meet one-third of the country's power needs, and five more are under construction.
There have been growing concerns over the safety of nuclear reactors at home due to occasional blackouts, a series of corruption scandals and safety jitters caused by Japan's 2011 nuclear meltdown in Fukushima that drew unwelcome attention to the use of nuclear energy.
Yet, Seoul has vowed to stick to its nuclear power program as Asia's fourth-largest economy could not find an alternative source of energy.
Aju News Lim Chang-won = cwlim34@ajunews.com
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