Heads of the nuclear plant from Kozlodui were threatened to be dismissed if they do not keep silent in regards to an incident which took place on March 1, 2006, reveals a telegram to the American Embassy in Sofia, published by WikiLeaks.
The protection systems of the reactor number 5 of the Kozlodui nuclear plant were partially damaged after a power failure occurred on March 1. Without providing details, management has announced that a power failure occurred, adding that they proceeded to stop the power generator and the reactor “in order to control the other technical systems of the reactor”.
A few days later, the expert Gheorghi Kasciev, former employee of the plant, declared to the bTV television station that “the reactor 5 would have been like a train without brakes backup” at the incident time. He added that “there was a significant blocking of the protection systems, unprecedented in the world history of atomic energy, which corresponds, in his view, to “a level 2 or 3 incident” on the international scale of nuclear incidents.
An official response from the plant’s management came only after the German magazine Der Spiegel quoted Kasciev’s allegations. The plant director at the time, Ivan Ivanov, declared that safety was not compromised at any time. “We proceeded with stopping reactor 5, even if the protection system would’ve have had sufficient capacity to work fine”, said Ivanov.
According to the telegram, the U.S. Embassy in Sofia has learned about the incident approximately a month before the article was published in Der Spiegel, and contacted the parties involved. Embassy representatives have found that the heads of the plant were forced not to reveal details about the incident, being threatened with dismissal.
Even after the incident has been disclosed by the press, the Bulgarian authorities continued to try to hide the truth, reveals the document signed by Ambassador John Beyrle. He quotes the Energy Minister at that time – Rumen Ovcharov, who on April 25 told the media that nothing special happened at Kozlodui, and that the incident is caused by people trying to discredit Bulgaria’s energy sector and the country in general.