Maine earthquake causes no damage at New Hampshire nuclear plant

Oct 17 (Reuters) - U.S. power company NextEra Energy Inc said a moderate earthquake in southwest Maine late Tuesday caused no damage at its nuclear power plant in New Hampshire, which has been shut for a planned refueling outage since about Sept. 17.

The moderate earthquake struck Maine on Tuesday shortly after 7 p.m. (2300 GMT), according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). It was first reported as a 4.5 magnitude quake centered near Lake Arrowhead, but the USGS revised the quake's magnitude to 4.6 and finally down to 4.0.

In a report to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), NextEra, of Juno Beach, Florida, said it declared an unusual event when the earthquake was felt at the plant.

An unusual event is the lowest of the NRC's four emergency classifications.

The plant exited the unusual event after several hours following walk downs that indicated no reports of damage at the station.

NextEra said in the report, the unit was exiting the refueling outage. Reuters expected the unit to exit the outage sometime this week. See ---------------------------------------------------------- PLANT BACKGROUND/TIMELINE STATE: New Hampshire COUNTY: Rockingham TOWN: Hampton, about 40 miles (64 km) north of Boston OPERATOR: NextEra Energy OWNER(S): NextEra Energy CAPACITY: 1,247 MW UNIT(S): Westinghouse pressurized Water Reactor FUEL: Nuclear DISPATCH: Baseload TIMELINE: 1976 - Construction permit for two reactors granted. Unit

2 was canceled and most of its components sold to

other plants 1986 - Unit 1 construction completed 1990 - Full power operation for Unit 1 2002 - Ten New England utilities that own the plant sold

reactor to FPL, later known as NextEra 2010 - NextEra files license renewal application for 20

years. The NRC said the date of a decision on the

renewal was to be determined 2030 - Current license set to expire if not renewed by NRC