KIEV - The Chernobyl nuclear plant shut down automatically on Sunday after the transformer which passes on its energy to Ukraine's power grid developed a defect, but radiation levels did not rise, nuclear officials said yesterday.
"It was like applying the brakes on a car. The brakes worked very well," Mr Sergei Parashin, head of the plant about 150 km north of Kiev, said.
An automatic message playing at the plant's public affairs office said Reactor No 3, the only one of four at the plant still working, had been halted and put on a "cooling regime". All equipment had worked normally and safety standards were not breached.
"Radiation levels at the station and around the reactor did not change," the message said.
Chernobyl's fourth reactor exploded in 1986, sending a plume of radioactivity across much of Europe, but about 5,000 people still work there.