New Delhi, May 14: Six workers were scalded when hot water spurted from a valve on a pipeline in the turbine section of the Kudankulam nuclear power plant, a senior official said, adding the plant is otherwise functioning normally.

“The hot water spilled out during routine maintenance work,” plant director R.S. Sundar said over the phone from Kudankulam, the site of a Russian-built 1000-MW reactor that began feeding electricity to the southern Indian grid in October 2013.

“It was a small amount of water, but enough to cause injuries,” Sundar said. Six persons, three staff workers and three contract workers, who were scalded by the water are now being treated in hospital, he said.

Although the incident has been classified as a minor event in the turbine section — a non-radioactive zone of the plant — it has been reported to the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board as required by protocols that guide nuclear power station operations.