SOUTHLAND : WORLD : 1 Chernobyl Reactor Shut Down

The No. 3 reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was shut down today because of a partial failure of its control system, the Izvestia newspaper said.

The shutdown did not cause any “breaches of the limits of safe operation” at the sister reactor of the No. 4 unit that exploded in April, 1986, in the worst atomic energy accident in history, Izvestia said.

The newspaper quoted Nikolai Steinberg, deputy chairman of the Soviet Atomic Energy Safety Committee, as saying personnel stopped the operation of the No. 3 reactor at 7:30 a.m. Moscow time.

Steinberg told Izvestia that “the operation of the control system of the third reactor was partially violated because of a malfunctioning in the electrical system.”

The No. 3 reactor shared cooling and ventilation systems with the No. 4 unit and was contaminated in the 1986 explosion. It was shut down for more than a year after the accident, opening in July, 1987.