Second water leak at Finnish nuclear plant

HELSINKI (Reuters) -- A Finnish nuclear power station has suffered a mildly radioactive water leak for the second time in two days, the country's nuclear safety officials have said.

The Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority (STUK) said that the leaks inside the Loviisa power plant on Friday had not posed any risk to the plant's personnel or the surrounding environment.

An official said the authority was still waiting for exact radiation measurements from Loviisa, but the recurrence of the problems prompted it to issue an "INES 1" -- the lowest international radiation safety warning.

An operational error resulted in 10 cubic meters of "mildly radioactive" water leaking into the plant's containment building during tests on the fuel rod cooling system, officials said.

The incident at the power station, located about 45 miles east of Helsinki,occurred after 20 cubic meters of radioactive water flowed onto the floor of one of the facility's buildings during testing of the same system Thursday, officials said.

Safety checks

Measures had been taken to reduce the likelihood of incidents caused by human error, the authority said.

The Loviisa plant is one of two nuclear power facilities in Finland, each with two power units.

The Loviisa plant's unit number one, where the incidents happened, has been at a standstill since July because of annual safety checks and the closure will now be prolonged slightly, the STUK official said.

The second unit was operating normally and STUK did not expect the incident to affect power generation at Loviisa.

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