IAEA-sponsored training session for nuclear experts starts in Tokaimura.

MITO, Japan, June 11 Kyodo

An International Atomic Energy Agency-sponsored training session for nuclear engineers and researchers started Monday in Tokaimura, Ibaraki Prefecture, with around 40 people from Japan as well as abroad attending.

The IAEA session, the first in Japan, will last about three weeks and include lectures by nuclear experts on nuclear power generation and the nuclear fuel cycle, according to the organizers.

There will also be reports about the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant and subsequent developments and an inspection of decontamination work in Fukushima Prefecture, home of the complex crippled by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

The participants include some 20 energy officials from 13 countries, mainly in Asia and Africa, and around 20 engineers at Japan's power companies and nuclear plant makers.

The session is the fourth of its kind and Japan was asked to host it before the Fukushima nuclear accident, the organizers said. The first session was held in Italy in 2010.

Tokaimura is known as the "pioneer" site in Japan's nuclear program as the nation's first research reactor achieved criticality there in 1957.