Sellafield incident no worse than plant says - Government

LONDON (Reuters) - The British energy ministry said on Friday it had no reason to believe that the elevated levels of radioactivity at the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing site were any more serious than the plant had said. Sellafield, in north west England, said earlier on Friday it had detected elevated levels of radioactivity at one of its on-site monitors and was operating at reduced staffing levels. It said the levels were above naturally occurring radiation, but well below that which would call for any actions to be taken by the workforce on or off the site. "We are in constant contact with Sellafield, but we have no reason to believe that it is any more serious than they've said," a spokesman for the Department of Energy and Climate Change said. (Reporting by Kate Holton; editing by William Schomberg)