Chernobyl, the return? No, we reassure you right away. The incident has nothing to do with the explosion of the Ukrainian reactor, which remains the worst nuclear disaster in history. But a reactor at a station near Rostov-on-Don, in southern Russia, was shut down as a precaution.
A small steam leak, due to a weld defect on an 18-millimeter pipe carrying non-radioactive water, was detected. Andrei Timonov, spokesperson for Rosenergoatom, a subsidiary of the Russian nuclear agency Rosatom, was reassuring by explaining that the incident presented no danger and that “everything will be repaired within two days”, once the pipe cooled and repaired. The levels of radioactivity near the leak and the plant are “in line with normal levels,” he added.