British Nuclear Plant Incidents

Radioactive spills and breakdown revealed at British nuclear plants

Leaked report details incidents at three plants during February that were serious enough to be reported to ministers

A puddle containing plutonium five times the legal level where health officials must be notified leaked from Sellafield nuclear complex in Cumbria, the report says. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

20 April 2011 - There have been two spillages of radioactive waste and a breakdown in an emergency cooling system at Britain's nuclear plants in the last three months, according to a report to ministers leaked to the Guardian.

A brown puddle containing plutonium five times the legal threshold at which the site must notify the Health and Safety Executive leaked from an old ventilation duct at the Sellafield nuclear complex in Cumbria. This exposed "a number of shortfalls in the design", says the report.

Groundwater at the Torness nuclear power station near Edinburgh was contaminated with radioactive tritium (an isotope of hydrogen) leaking from two pipelines. At Hartlepool nuclear station on the north-east coast of England, the backup cooling system was put out of action by a faulty valve.

All three incidents occurred in February and are still under investigation by the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR), the government's new nuclear safety watchdog. They were sufficiently serious to be reported to ministers under safety guidelines agreed after the Chernobyl accident in Ukraine 25 years ago. {continued}