Soviets Tell Finns of ’75 Nuclear Accident at Leningrad Plant

HELSINKI — The Soviet Union has told Finland of a previously unreported “serious” accident at a Leningrad nuclear power plant in 1975, a Finnish official said Friday.

A breakdown in a Chernobyl-type reactor released a small amount of radioactivity, the Finnish Center for Radiation and Nuclear Safety said.

“We are preliminarily considering it as a Class 3 event on the International Nuclear Event Scale, which means classing it as a ‘serious incident,’ ” center official Hannu Koponen said.

“A fuel channel in one of Leningrad’s four nuclear power units broke in November, 1975. A small amount of radioactivity was released but we were told no action was needed to protect the environment and the plant was back in use two weeks later.”