VARBERG, Sweden, Nov. 15 (UPI) -- A Swedish nuclear reactor has shut itself down after an fire and explosion rocked the plant.
In Monday night's incident, a fire triggered a loud explosion and spread quickly in one of the plant's reactors, with smoke billowing from the reactor in western Sweden, near Varberg.
The fire was contained quickly and all emergency systems functioned flawlessly, immediately shutting down the reactor, a plant spokesman told a Swedish radio station. There were no injuries, he said.
The plant, which provides 18 percent of Sweden's electricity, is jointly operated by Swedish energy giant Vattenfall and German firm Eon. It will be out of business for at least three weeks, officials said.
The incident is the second in the Scandinavian country after an incident at a Vattenfall-operated nuclear power plant in Forsmark.
According to some experts, the Forsmark incident stopped just short of plunging Europe into a nuclear catastrophe.
Sweden in 1980 voted to phase out nuclear energy, but the government has put off that plan.
