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| Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia |
| Explosion at Russian nuclear plant |
| 2005-12-16 |
| Russian officials faced international questioning Friday in the wake of an explosion at a nuclear plant in St. Petersburg that killed one worker. Officials say only a smelter at the plant was affected in the blast on Thursday and that radiation levels are normal. Officials say one worker died in the explosion and two others were badly burned. The Leningrad nuclear plant is close to the borders of both Estonia and Finland. "There were no violations of safety levels and operating conditions of the energy units of the Leningrad nuclear plant," Russian nuclear authorities said in a statement. CBC News in London spoke with International Atomic Energy Agency officials in Vienna about the accident. They say they are in contact with authorities in Russia and are awaiting clarification on exactly what happened. The plant has four units and the smelter affected was in the second one. It had been shut down since July for repairs, officials say. The Leningrad plant is the main supplier of electricity to the city of St. Petersburg. The plant is 30 years old, and one of its reactors is the same as the one at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine. The Chernobyl reactor exploded in April 1986 in the world's worst nuclear accident. |
| Posted by:Rafael |
| #2 The plant has four units and the smelter affected was in the second one. Is it just me or does the presence of a smelter in the midst of nuclear power generating equipment stand out like a whore in church? Metallurigical refining in and of itself is a fairly accident prone process involving elevated temperatures, high power consumption and (ipso facto) molten metal. None of these are particularly good things to have mucking about while you're trying to moderate neutrons. I'm confident that, with their usual hyper-pragmatic Soviet mentality, they decided to place a smelter right where electrical power would be most available, i.e., cheek by jowl with a nuclear reactor. Sheesh. Even if the smelter is for deprocessing of fuel rods or whatever, it would make a lot more sense to isolate these two hazardous functions by a kilometer or so. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2005-12-16 11:51 |
| #1 Sorry, this should be on pg.3. |
| Posted by: Rafael 2005-12-16 11:12 |