The quake recorded a seismic acceleration of 680 gal - far in excess of the 273 gal the plant was designed to survive. A fire quickly broke out in a transformer in the No 3 reactor, radioactive water leaked from Unit 6, and radioactive material was released into the air from the main stack of reactor No 7. Over the next 10 days, 67 problems were reported within the plant, which was operated by Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) and covered 4.2 square km on the coast of the Sea of Japan.

But officials of Tepco said the message was not getting through that the amount of radioactive material leaked was minuscule - a mere 90,000 Bq from Unit 6 and a further 400,000,000 Bq from Unit 7 - and could have no impact on the environment or human health. They admitted that no one was listening because the company had been caught lying in the past.

'It's our own fault,' said Hiro Hasegawa, manager of Tepco's corporate communications department. 'We had a problem with the falsification of data in the past and because of that, I have to admit the Japanese public has lost its belief in us.

'The leak of radioactive material was tiny, but even if we say there is no danger, few people believe us any more. It is up to us to rebuild our trust with local citizens.'

Touring the plant, it was easy to see why local people would have been alarmed by what they were seeing on their television screens. Cracked or twisted roads were testament to the strength of the tremor, but the transformer at Unit 3 remained scorched and blackened after it took firemen two hours to bring the blaze under control. It was subsequently learned the plant had no on-site fire-fighting capability and was reliant on the local municipal fire service, who were busy putting out other fires triggered by the quake.

Inside the plant, stacks of 200-litre drums containing radioactive waste - some with their lids open - were toppled, while water from the spent fuel pool alongside the No 6 reactor sloshed into a pool containing non-radioactive water and was automatically pumped out into the ocean. In all the cases, Tepco officials were at pains to underline that there was no danger to local residents.

With many still struggling to deal with the impact on their homes and jobs of the earthquake itself, local people have broader worries about the plant on their doorstep.

'We can't see radiation and Niigata Prefecture has suffered badly from all the bad news linked to the earthquake and the problems at the plant,' said Toshiro Oguri, 67, a retired teacher whose home was destroyed in the earthquake. 'I worry about the impact on the environment, but also I see the beaches that used to be popular last year are deserted this year.

'We are going to get a terrible reputation and no one will want to come here again,' said Mr Oguri, who was living in temporary accommodation with his 72-year-old wife, Kimiko.

Parts of Kashiwazaki city were still piles of rubble where houses, shops and temples had collapsed. Roads were closed, gravestones had been toppled and diggers were trying to remove the debris.

Mayor Hiroshi Aida said his city was getting back to normal, but he admitted not all of his citizens were as supportive as they used to be

of a power plant that employed thousands of local people.

'It is true a lot of residents are worried and although it's not possible for me to talk to everyone in the city, the impression I get is that people have concerns and no longer trust Tepco,' he said. 'Nuclear power plants are useful but this has showed us a serious earthquake can have a major impact on an atomic plant and it is difficult to rely on the government's present energy policy.' His constituents were going to take a lot of convincing of the safety of the plant before it could resume operations, the mayor said.

Environmentalists said any talk of Kashiwazaki-Kariwa going back online was premature.

'The initial investigation into the status of the plant lasted just three days and concluded that the plant shut down safely and damage was less than expected, even though, as yet, nothing is known of the condition of key equipment, including the reactor pressure vessel, reactor structural components and major piping systems,' said Aileen Mioko-Smith, of Kyoto-based Green Action.

She said that made it deeply disturbing that Haruki Madarame, chairman of the investigation committee established by the government's Agency for Natural Resources and Energy, had said the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant would be operational within two years.

'The response of the operator was not sufficient,' said Philip White, the international liaison officer for the Tokyo-based Citizens' Nuclear Information Centre. 'It took two hours to extinguish a fire in a transformer in unit three and nearly eight hours to discover a pool of water before reporting to the authorities that it was radioactive and that some had leaked out to sea. These examples reveal Tepco's inability to respond to earthquake-induced disasters.'

The government failed to react adequately and in a timely manner, Mr White said, despite the current back-checks on Japan's nuclear power plants to ensure they met earthquake-resistance guidelines that went into force last September. 'All the plants predate the new guidelines,' he said. 'As has been shown by the Chuetsu-Oki earthquake, the old earthquake safety assessments were flawed. That means the safety of all of Japan's nuclear power plants is

in doubt. Why, then, has the government not ordered them all to be shut down until their safety has been confirmed?'

While Mr White believed the industry did try to provide more information than it had done on previous occasions - and was embarrassed when it was caught out concealing serious problems, including the severity of a sodium leak at the Monju fast breeder reactor in 1995 - the debate was missing the fundamental point.

'The real implications of this earthquake are that nuclear power is not safe in Japan. The authorities and Tepco will resist tooth and nail calls to permanently close down Kashiwazaki-Kariwa,' he said. 'However, the logical lesson that should be learnt from this case is that Kashiwazaki-Kariwa should never be restarted.'

On September 20, a group of Niigata residents will submit a petition to the Japanese Supreme Court stating the damage caused by July's earthquake shows the construction permit issued by the government in 1977 for Kashiwazaki-Kariwa is illegal. In November 2005, the Tokyo High Court dismissed a similar petition on the grounds that there was no active seismic fault near the plant and that a safety review had confirmed there was little likelihood of a major earthquake and consequent damage to the reactors.

Despite that thinking behind the decision clearly in error, Japan's thirst for power is unlikely to spell the end of Kashiwazaki-Kariwa. With Japan relying on nuclear power for 30 per cent of its total power consumption, the government is firmly committed to increasing that figure in the coming years.

'Without nuclear power, we could not meet demand for energy,' said Akira Fukushima, deputy director-general for safety examinations within the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, a division of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. 'It also helps reduce carbon dioxide emissions and other gases that cause global warming.

'We do have to diversify our sources of energy and we have been doing that for the past 30 years, since the oil crisis of the 1970s.

'To make nuclear energy as safe as possible, we will use all the latest knowledge and technology to reduce their concerns.'