Fire breaks out at Japanese nuclear reactor

Fire crews raced to a decommissioned nuclear reactor complex outside Tokyo today after fire alarms sounded and a noise like an explosion was reported.

An Industry Ministry official in charge of nuclear safety said there were no reports of radiation leaks at the 165,000-kilowatt Fugen experimental reactor, which stopped operating in March so it could be scrapped.

"There seems to be some smoke, but we haven't been able to confirm if there was a fire... There weren't any radiation leaks," the ministry official said.

There were no reports of injuries.

The fire alarms went off at a nuclear waste disposal building at the facility on the Japan Sea coast, 350 km (215 miles) west of Tokyo.