Newsday

Ukraine Briefly Shuts Down Reactor

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) -- A nuclear reactor at Ukraine's Zaporizhia atomic power plant shut down temporarily because of a malfunction, the state nuclear company Energoatom said Thursday.

Engineers switched off the No. 5 reactor for five hours on Wednesday after a transformer broke down, Energoatom said. The reactor was restarted early Thursday morning, the company said. The shutdown posed no danger of releasing radiation into the environment.

Zaporizhia, in southern Ukraine, operates six nuclear reactors and is Europe's largest atomic power plant.

Currently, 12 out of the 14 reactors at Ukraine's five nuclear power plants are working. They produce more than 40 percent of the country's electricity output.

AP-NY-10-19-00 1002EDT< 

-- Rachel Gibson (rgibson@hotmail.com), October 19, 2000