Blast Rips Through Russian Nuclear Plant
An explosion ripped through a smelter at a nuclear power plant outside the northern city of St. Petersburg, badly injuring three people, Russia’s nuclear agency said Friday.
Rosenergoatom said radiation levels were not affected as the reactor in that part of the Leningrad nuclear plant was undergoing repairs and not in operation at the time. But Thursday’s blast raised questions about safety at an onsite scrap metal operation.
The blast caused molten metal to burst out of the smelter, where a private company was reprocessing scrap metal, said a plant spokesman, Sergei Averyanov.
The Leningrad nuclear plant is in the town of Sosnovy Bor, 400 miles northwest of Moscow and 50 miles west of St. Petersburg, the chief city in the region with 5 million people.
The plant has four units, or reactors, and the smelter is located in the complex containing the second one. The second unit was shut down for major repairs in July, the agency said.
“There were no violations of safety levels and operating conditions of the energy units of the Leningrad nuclear plant,†Rosenergoatom said in a statement.
Source: MSNBC.
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