Valve Blamed for Leak at Russian Nuclear Plant
MOSCOW — Radioactive gases escaped from a Chernobyl-style nuclear reactor near St. Petersburg because of a valve breakdown, the head of a commission investigating last month’s leak said Friday.
The leak was not caused by a defective graphite tube, as Russian nuclear officials initially believed, Sergei Adamchik told a news conference.
The March 24 leak at the Leningradskaya plant in Sosnovy Bor, 50 miles west of St. Petersburg, renewed fears in the West about the safety of nuclear power plants in the former Soviet Union.
The Leningradskaya reactor is one of 16 in the former Soviet Union of the RMBK type, the variety that caught fire at the Chernobyl plant in the Ukraine and spread radiation across much of Europe in 1986.
Western officials are pressing for these reactors to be modified or shut down.
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