Malfunction leads to energy plant shutdown

Crisis hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, Japan A nuclear power plant in North Carolina, USA has been put on high alert after an equipment malfunction caused it to lose power.
The warning was issued on Thursday by Duke Energy who operates the energy producing installation.  It said experts were conducting safety procedures to stabilise the plant, and emergency sirens had been manned, along its 10 mile emergency planning zone.
An alert is the second warning stage of four nuclear energy emergency classification.  It poses no immediate threat, however it can rapidly escalate to stage three, and a full scale evacuation of the plant and immediate area.
In May a quarter inch crack in a reactor forced the operator to take the plant offline, no radioactive material leaked from the incident.
On Thursday, Japan’s Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe ordered the government and operators of the meltdown-stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, to find "multiple, speedy and sure" ways to stop the spread of radioactive groundwater from leaking out of the plant.
TEPCO, who run the facility admitted that the plant has been grappling to contain the leaking water, since it was hit by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami that devastated eastern Japan.