N-reactor leak contained:

A leak at a small nuclear reactor in Norway has been contained, with no injuries sustained and no expected environmental damage outside the facility, the reactor’s operator and the country’s Radiation Protection Authority (NRPA) said on Tuesday.

The leak at the research reactor operated by the Institute for Energy Technology, located in a mountain cave in the middle of Halden in southern Norway, began on Monday at 1145 GMT but the regulator said it was not alerted until Tuesday.

The crew of the reactor was evacuated after the leak was detected but some staff later returned to assess the cause and extent of the accident, the NRPA said. Its operator said the reactor was isolated and the leak contained.

“We will investigate how this (leak) could happen and why we were not warned until the following day,” the regulator said in a statement.

A senior official at the regulator told Reuters the incident would “maybe” be rated a 1 on an International Nuclear Event Scale ranking from 1 to 7, where 1 is an anomaly and 7 is a major accident, such as Chernobyl or Fukushima.

“We need to gather more information ... But we are not happy with the situation, that we were not warned immediately. We will investigate further,” Per Strand, the head of safety, preparedness and environment at the NRPA, told Reuters.

The reactor’s operator said the leak had been contained and there had been no injuries. “The reactor is shut. The leak is contained,” Atle Valseth, research director at the Institute for Energy Technology told Reuters. (RTRS)

Valseth