Fire halts Spain's Vandellos II nuclear plant

Reuters
Sunday August 24 2008


MADRID, Aug 24 (Reuters) - Spain's 1,000-megawatt Vandellos II nuclear plant was halted on Sunday after a fire in its electrical generator, Spain's Nuclear Security Council said.
The fire at the plant near the northeastern port of Tarragona started at 8:49 a.m. local (0649 GMT) and was extinguished by 10:30 by firefighters, the council said in a news release.
The plant could be closed for several weeks, newspaper El Pais quoted the council's assistant emergency manager, Eugenio Gil, as saying. The council was not available for comment, nor was any spokesman at Vandellos.
Vandellos is 72 percent owned by Spain's second-largest power company, Endesa, while top utility Iberdrola has the remaining 28 percent.
"At this time the plant is halted and stable," the council said, adding that the incident had had no effect on workers or the environment. (Reporting by Jason Webb; editing by Elaine Hardcastle and Braden Reddall)