False alarm leads to Kaiga nuclear plant shutdown

A false alarm led to the shutting down of Kaiga Atomic Power Station's third reactor. It would be restarted on April 17 and connected to the grid after surveillance tests.

"Preliminary investigation has revealed that it was a false alarm. There was no fire or fuel leakage in the temperature moderator equipment in the reactor. Nothing abnormal was noticed. Everything is safe," Kaiga power generating station director J.P. Gupta told IANS.

An investigation into the smoke detection alarm that appeared in its control room will also be investigated.

Gupta said following explosions and radiation leakage at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in the east coast of Japan after the massive earthquake and tsunami March 11, multi-level safety measures were put in place at the Kaiga plant.

Though Kaiga does not fall in an earthquake zone, the plant shuts down automatically if any radiation leak is detected.

"We are investigating the root cause of the false alarm on all parameters and to find out if there was any equipment failure. I have visited the control room to check the safety measures in place and analyse the data. We found nothing unusual," Gupta said.