"There had been a mechanical failure of the cooling pump when the reactor was switched on," Mohammed al-Qolali told AFP, saying the reactor was quickly repaired.

He said that during the failure there was "absolutely no" leak.

Egypt, which launched its nuclear programme in the 1950s, acquired a Russian-made nuclear research reactor and later an Argentine one at the Inshass research centre, north of Cairo.

Qolali said it was the Russian-made reactor that had broken down, in an interview in Tuesday's edition of the independent daily al-Masry al-Youm.

He told the paper that the person in charge of the reactor had switched it on without authorisation, violating regulations, and would face a disciplinary hearing.

Egypt's nuclear programme was frozen in 1986 following the Chernobyl disaster in the Ukraine.

In 2007, President Hosni Mubarak announced the re-launch of the nuclear programme and said four civil nuclear power stations would be built under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

On August 25, Mubarak announced that it would build its first power plant on the Mediterranean coast at Al-Dabaa.

The 1,000 megawatt facility is expected to be linked up to the national grid by 2019.

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