Taiwan’s No. 1 nuclear power plant located in the densely populated north of the island was automatically shut down on Saturday due to human error, the operator of the facility said Tuesday.
Chai Fu-feng, a spokesman of Taiwan Power Co. (Taipower), told Kyodo News that the Unit 2 reactor of the Chinshan nuclear power station in New Taipei City was automatically shut down when instruments detected too much water in the reactor pressure vessel.
Power shedding was activated as part of the procedure to protect the reactor when Typhoon Soulik lashed northern Taiwan on Saturday, he said.
However, when a plant worker switched off a draining valve to control the heat in the reactor, the outcome did not turn out to be what he had expected, he said.
Panicking, he added water to the reactor to keep the water level up, but he added too much water too fast, which eventually caused the reactor to automatically scram, he said.
Continue reading at Human error causes Taiwan’s nuclear plant shutdown
Related article: Typhoon Soulik causes nuclear reactor shutdown via The China Post
