Quake Causes Officials to Take Two Nuclear Reactors Offline Near Epicenter

Two nuclear reactors at the North Anna Power Station in Louisa County, Va., were automatically taken off line by safety systems around the time of today's 5.8 magnitude earthquake. The plant is located seven miles northeast of the quake's epicenter in Mineral, Va.

The earthquake struck this afternoon and was felt along the East Coast.

The Dominion-operated power plant is being run off three emergency diesel generators, which are supplying power for critical safety equipment. A fourth diesel generator failed, but it wasn't considered an emergency because the other generators are working.The NRC and Dominion are sending people to inspect the plant.

According to CNN, who spoke with Louisa County spokeswoman Amanda Reidelbach, there has been no release of nuclear material but the generators are needed to keep things cool, which was the issue that caused the nuclear meltdown in Fukushima earlier this year after Japan's 9.0 magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami:

A disruption of offsite power, not an unheard of event, is one of the biggest fears for critics of nuclear power. Power is needed to circulate water that both cools the rector core and the spent fuel, which lies near the reactor in specially-designed pools.

It was the loss of power at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi plant, not the tsunami itself, that ultimately led that plant to meltdown. The flooding prevented backup generators from working.

. . .

When offsite power is lost, nuclear power plants can usually rely on backup diesel generators for several days, although offsite power is normally restored within hours.

As reported by the Washington Post:

"As far as we know, everything is safe," said Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman David McIntyre.

Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman Roger Hannah says the agency was not immediately aware of any damage at nuclear power plants in the southeast. According to CNN, the NRC reported that the nine other nuclear power plants in New Jersey, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Maryland have not reported any conditions that would merit a shutdown.

Louisa County is about 40 miles northwest of Richmond and 70 miles from Washington, DC.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.