Incident at Lithuanian nuclear power plant causes stoppage Source: BBC Monitoring Former Soviet Union - Political Publication date: 2000-07-29

Text of report in English by Russian news agency Interfax Vilnius, 28th July: The Ignalina nuclear power plant in Lithuania stopped producing electric energy on Friday [28th July].

The second of the two power units was stopped due to the fact that the only functioning turbine generator cut off, the technical director of the power plant, Gennadiy Negrivoda, has told Interfax.

As has already been established, the cutting-off of the turbine generator was caused by a sudden fault in a switch in a 330-kV external switch-gear. The incident did not result in a change in the radiation level at the plant facilities and outside them.

Lithuania has committed itself to shutting down the first power unit of the plant by 2005. The unit was stopped in early May for planned maintenance work, which is to be completed by October.

The management of the plant declined to say when the production of electrical energy might be resumed.

http://cnniw.yellowbrix.com/pages/cnniw/Feedback.nsp?ID=cnniw&scategory=Utilities

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), July 29, 2000