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British Energy probes incident at nuclear plant
LONDON (Reuters) - An incident in late June at the Dungeness B power station near London has been provisionally rated at level two on the seven-tier International Nuclear Event Scale (INES), the EDF-owned operating company said on Tuesday.
While connecting new fuel to a fuel plug unit on June 29, a piece of rubber was found to have become trapped, threatening the integrity of the connection.
"The coupling did not fail, there was no plant damage, no staff were injured and there was no release of radioactivity," plant operator British Energy said in a statement.
"There was no impact on the safety of our workforce or the public at large and there was no damage to the plant. Both units continue to operate as normal."
Operations in the fuel building at the power station in southeast England ceased immediately and foam was injected under the fuel assembly as a precaution.
But a subsequent review confirmed that the foam used was not permitted under the rules.
The load has since been secured by fitting clamps and plant engineers are working on a plan to return the fuel handling equipment to full service safely.
British Energy is investigating the cause of the event with UK nuclear safety authorities.
It is the seventh INES level two event at a plant run by British Energy since the scale was introduced in 1990 but the company has never had any incident at its plants rated above this level.
(Reporting by Daniel Fineren)
