Samcheok residents reject government plan for local nuclear plant 원전반대 84.9%..

The Korean government has rejected... the results of a referendum on the construction of a nuclear power plant in the northeastern city of Samcheok,... saying it was invalid.
Nine out of ten residents said...they didn′t want the plant in their city.
Kim Hyun-bin reports.
As expected, residents of the city of Samcheok have rejected a referendum on a nuclear power plant in their city.
Eighty-point-9 percent of the city′s residents were against plant construction and only 14-point-4 percent for it, with the participation of over two-thirds of the city′s 420-thousand eligible voters.
The referendum was hosted by the city and anti-nuclear power plant activists seeking to force the central government to retract a plan to build the plant.
"Residents of Samcheok, we have won today... I am moved to tears by your support."
The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy says that the results are invalid on gounds the poll was arranged by a civic group and not by the official election management committee.
The ministry has made it clear it will push ahead with the plan to build the plant.
Pro-nuclear power plant groups have also questioned the poll′s reliability.
"We can′t accept the results of a vote orchestrated to pursue interests of local government employees. It′s an invalid exercise, so should be nullified."
The dispute over the plant between the residents and the government has gone on for four years, intensifying since the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster in 2011.
This isn′t the first time the government has tried to build a nuclear plant in Samcheok.
Another plan was scrapped in 1998 due to citizen protests.
Although the government has rejected the results of the Samcheok referendum on the basis that it was conducted independently, it accepted the results of another locally arranged referendum held in 2004.
That year, a plan to build a radioactive waste disposal facility in Buan, southwest of Seoul, after voters rejected it in a similar referendum.
Despite international efforts to reduce the number of nuclear power plants, Korea has plans to build seven additional plants by 2035.
Kim Hyun-bin, Arirang News.