Hungary n-plant leaks traces of radioactive gas
Date: 22-Apr-03
Country: HUNGARY
Paks has four Soviet-type VVER-440 pressurised water reactors, the first of which became operational in 1982. "The incident did not affect the installations or technological systems of reactor bloc II," the Paks nuclear plant said in a statement. "Emission levels are within accepted levels, and there is no measurable difference in the background radiation level in the surrounding area."
Reactor II started to leak traces of radioactive gas on April 10, during a routine cleaning of the fuel rods, and the incident was originally classified level two on the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) seven-step scale. Last week, upon opening the reactor bloc which could until then only be inspected through video cameras, Paks raised the level of the incident to three.
This is the highest incident level, as events from four on the scale are considered accidents. The 1979 meltdown at the U.S. Three Mile Island power plant was classified five on the same scale and the 1986 Chernobyl catastrophe ranked seven.
Paks said in previous a statement that most of the 30 fuel rods in the reactor bloc have been "seriously damaged" but the leakage of the radioactive gas caused no detectable increase in radiation.
Friday's statement from the plant also said that the damaged fuel rods were currently at the bottom of a pool containing several hundred cubic metres of water and nuclear specialists were planning their removal.
It also said that the other three reactors continue to operate normally.
The four reactors with an installed capacity of 1,860 megawatts cover about 40 percent of this 10 million country's annual power consumption.
