Update: Fire at Onagawa reactor put out, no radioactive leaks Source: Kyodo News Service/Associated Press Publication date: Feb 24, 2000

SENDAI, Feb. 24 (Kyodo) -- (EDS: ADDING DETAILS) A fire broke out Thursday afternoon in a control building next to the No. 1 nuclear power reactor of Tohoku Electric Power Co.'s Onagawa plant straddling the towns of Onagawa and Oshika in Miyagi Prefecture, but was soon extinguished. Nobody was injured and there is no danger of radiation leakage outside the plant, which is situated about 250 kilometers north of Tokyo, according to officials of the company and the Miyazaki prefectural nuclear safety office. The officials said the fire started at around 3:30 p.m. in the basement of the No. 1 reactor's control building, located adjacent to the reactor, but died out by itself. Local firefighters confirmed at around 4 p.m. that the fire had been extinguished. The 524,000-kilowatt reactor has been undergoing regular maintenance since Jan. 17 and was not in operation at the time of the fire. Company officials said the basement of the control building houses rooms for computers and for handling the electric power supply and that the fire likely broke out from the room handling direct electric current, which is not within the area designated as requiring supervision for radioactivity. Police investigators reportedly found that a coil inside a battery kept in the room had been burned over a length of about 7 or 8 centimeters. The control building contains a central control room to monitor the operation of the reactor and is separate from the facility that holds the reactor itself and the one that houses the turbine. Officials said a worker at the Onagawa plant notified the local fire department after the fire alarm went off in the basement of the control building. Publication date: Feb 24, 2000 ) 2000, NewsReal, Inc.

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