Reactor at Chernobyl restarted for tests

Press, 10 November 1986, Page 9

Reactor at Chernobyl restarted for tests

NZPA-AP Moscow The No 2 reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant has been restarted for tests, and the No 1 unit has been returned to service, the Soviet news media reported yesterday. Both reactors and a third unit were shut down last April after an explosion tore open the No 4 reactor at Chernobyl and sent radiation into the atmosphere. “The second generating unit has been recommissioned at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant after the first was put into service," Radio Moscow’s English-language service said.

“Special measures were taken to increase the safety of the reactor and all plant equipment.”

- In a separate ■'the Communist I-’ Party

daily newspaper, “Pravda.” said the No. '2 reactor had been put into a “testing regime.” Neither report said when the tests began on the reactor, but implied they had started recently.

Soviet newspapers reported in early October that the No 1 reactor had been restarted for tests. "Pravda” said yesterday that the unit had been shut down again for “corrective” work, then returned to service.

"Pravda” also quoted experts as saying prospects are good for restarting the No. 3 reactor adjacent to the ruined No. 4 unit, but was unclear about when that might be attempted.

It said work was continuing to encase the No. 4 reactor in concrete.

An explosion ripped through the No. 4 reactor

block in April during an experiment with steampowered turbines. At least 31 people have died as a result of the disaster, which forced the evacuation of more than 100,000 people from their homes in the northern Ukraine and southern Byelorussia.

Earlier, Soviet newspaper .reports said loss of power from the one million-kilowatt reactors at Chernobyl and delays in completing three new reactors elsewhere had caused a deficit of six million kilowatts in national electricity supplies. But energy officials have been quoted as saying the shortage should’ ease by the end of this year as the Chernobyl units are restarted and new reactors are commissioned.