My rice cooker just failed.

It's given me many years of service, but now a component seems to have
suffered some kind of mechanical faliure. It's a rather standard model
with the typical Warm/Cook modes. The model, specifically is a Tanin
TR-2002A. (You won't find anything Googling for it, except maybe, in a
few days this Usenet post. :-)) Relevant data: AC 220 V, ~ 50 Hz 620 W.

The component was connected in series with one of the AC power inputs,
and measuring over the poles gives me 0 Ohm of resistance.

Could somebody please help me to identify the type of this component? I
suspect it may be a thermal fuse, but I'm not at all sure about the
values required. Then again, it might be something completely
different, and I'm not really sure about it.

A close-up image of the component can be found at
http://www.pvz.pp.se/stuff/riskokarkomponent.jpg (59.2 kB). The actual
size of the component is approximately 15 millimeters from end to end.