Jul 1 Kiev [Reuter]. A small amount of radiation was released in one of two working reactors at the Chernobyl power station, site of the world's worst nuclear disaster, plant staff and Ukraine's nuclear authority said Monday.
Galina Nosach, an engineer at the station 90 miles north of Kiev, said the leak occurred in a corridor in the main room of Chernobyl's reactor No. 1. She said the incident rated zero on the 0-7 international scale of "nuclear events" and posed no threat to staff or the environment.
It was the latest in a long series of incidents at the plant, due to close by the end of the century. "It's still not clear why this happened," Nosach said by telephone. "Why does there have to be such a fuss about every little trivial occurrence? This can happen at any station. But we do understand that our station is viewed as a special one."
Tetyana Yagish, a spokeswoman for Ukraine's nuclear authority, said the leak was at levels five times higher than normal in a corridor used by staff. "They discovered it Friday and completed the clean-up operation Saturday," she said. Yagish said the leak occurred as staff were monitoring he insides of the reactor using television cameras. The incident was the second in two weeks at the station, where two reactors still produce about five percent of Ukraine's electricity.
Last week, a fire broke out at a storage shed near the third reactor, but was quickly extinguished.
President Leonid Kuchma last year promised to close Chernobyl for good by the end of the century and G7 wealthy nations have pledged more than $3 billion in aid and grants to complete the operation. Reactor No. 1 is to close by November.
But Ukrainian officials claim the money is not being released quickly enough to get started. The April 26, 1986, fire and explosion in Chernobyl's fourth reactor sent radiation billowing across most of Europe and contaminated large stretched of land in the former Soviet Union.
Ukraine says the disaster caused at least 4,300 deaths. Western experts say the station is inherently safe despite major changes and upgrading since the disaster. In an incident on the eve of the 10th anniversary, spent filters left unattended by staff contaminated four parts of the station. And in last year's most serious occurrence, a workman received a year's permitted dose of radiation when a seal was broken on a container holding nuclear fuel.