Ukraine energy minister says accident at nuclear plant poses 'no threat'

[December 03, 2014]  KIEV (Reuters) - Ukraine's Energy Minister Volodymyr Demchyshyn said on Wednesday an accident at the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant (NPP) in southeast Ukraine posed no danger and that the plant would return to running as normal on Dec. 5.

"There is no threat ... there are no problems with the reactors," Demchyshyn said at briefing, saying the accident affected the power output system and "in no way" was linked to power production itself.

In Vienna, the International Atomic Energy Agency said it had no immediate comment on the report. Under an international convention, adopted after the 1986 Chernobyl accident in what was then Soviet Ukraine, a country should notify the IAEA of any nuclear accident that can impact other countries.

(Reporting by Natalia Zinets; Additional reporting by Fredrik Dahl in Vienna; Writing by Alessandra Prentice; Editing by Richard Balmforth and Alison Williams)

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