OKUMA, Fukushima Prefecture--A World War II-era bomb was found buried in a parking lot of the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant on Aug. 10.
The Self-Defense Forces said the 50-kilogram dud was likely left by the imperial Japanese military and is in no danger of exploding.
Workers involved in a project to expand the parking lot at the nuclear complex noticed what appeared to be an unexploded bomb around 7:30 a.m., about 1 kilometer west of a reactor building and 350 meters northwest from the new office building of Tokyo Electric Power Co., operator of the plant.
A radius of 200 meters was cordoned off while the SDF worked to recover the bomb.
Fukushima prefectural police said the cylindrical bomb is about 85 centimeters long and about 15 cm in diameter.
Okuma and Futaba, two towns that co-host the nuclear plant, have been evacuated since the triple meltdown in 2011.
Okuma officials said the imperial Japanese military used an airfield in the neighborhood during the war.