Power line failures forced the shutdown of the Chernobyl nuclear power station yesterday, and a senior atomic energy official said there may be no point in turning it back on less than three weeks before its final closure.
A cold snap brought havoc to Ukraine's creaking national power grid, leaving millions without electricity. A spokeswoman for the atomic energy agency, Enerhoatom, said a sudden drop in demand due to a power line fault caused the shutdown of the last functioning reactor at Chernobyl. In 1986, Chernobyl was the site of the worst civilian nuclear disaster.
Another reactor at the south Ukraine power station was also forced out of action after engineers found a leak in a steam generator, officials said.
There was no increase in radiation levels around either power station.
Chernobyl is due to be shut down for good on December 15th, and Mr Vadim Hryshchenko, the acting director of Ukraine's atomic energy regulator said it might not be turned back on. He said there was a preliminary plan to restart the reactor on December 2nd, but added: "It's a completely reasonable question - is it worth our while restarting the reactor if it will only work for a few days before being turned off forever?"
A Enerhoatom spokeswoman, Ms Nadiya Shumak, said the reactor was shut down at 6 a.m. (4 a.m Irish time) following a fault in overhead electricity lines running from the western city of Vynnytsya to the plant.
The Emergencies Ministry said heavy wind, snow falls and ice in the Vynnytsya and neighbouring Khmelnitsky regions had left nearly half of all homes without electricity.
"They shut the reactor down at 9.20 a.m. after a leak from a steam generator got worse," he said. "But no increase in radiation was measured at the plant or around it."