SEOUL--All power was lost for 12 minutes at a nuclear reactor in South Korea in February, the country's Nuclear Safety and Security Commission said March 13.
SEOUL--All power was lost for 12 minutes at a nuclear reactor in South Korea in February, the country's Nuclear Safety and Security Commission said March 13.
The outage at the No. 1 reactor of the Kori nuclear power plant in the southeastern city of Busan occurred while the reactor was offline and undergoing inspections, officials said. However, the reactor’s fuel still needed to be cooled.
According to the NSSC, the external power supply went out at 8:34 p.m. on Feb. 9 during a test of power equipment at the No. 1 reactor. The emergency diesel power generator did not activate. It took 12 minutes to restore the external power supply.
Although the nuclear reactor was offline, a spent fuel storage pool and the reactor still required cooling to remove residual heat.
Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Co., the public corporation that operates the plant, filed a report with the NSSC only on March 12, more than a month after the incident.
The NSSC sent a team of investigators and started on-site inspections on March 13.
The Kori nuclear plant’s No. 1 reactor is in service beyond its designed operational life of 30 years. A glitch in an electrical system caused a shutdown of its No. 1 reactor on April 12 last year.
An anomaly also occurred at the No. 2 reactor on June 21, raising concerns among inhabitants of neighboring areas.