THERE was panic last night after a blaze tore through a Ukrainian nuclear power plant reactor built in the same year as the Chernobyl nuke disaster.

Videos show the alarming inferno at Rivne power plant in the ex-Soviet republic as emergency teams battled to bring high flames and toxic black smoke under control.

6 Footage showed smoke billowing into the sky above Rivne power plant in the ex-Soviet republic Credit: East2west News

6 Three dozen firefighters and ten fire appliances rushed to the scene last night Credit: East2west News

As a result, the nuclear power plant had to be be shut down after it was engulfed in flames.

Toxic black smoke could be seen filling the sky above the nuke plant in the dramatic video footage.

The overnight blaze broke out in the transformer of the third reactor unit at Rivne.

It was built in 1986, the year the Chernobyl nuclear station exploded in Soviet Ukraine, say reports.

Three dozen firefighters and ten fire trucks rushed to the blaze to extinguish it after emergency procedures were set in place.

The cause is so far unknown.

Ukraine’s State Emergency Situations Service of Rivne region reported the level of radiation remained normal in the area.

There were no casualties, it was claimed.

Petro Kratik, head of information at Rivne nuclear station, confirmed there had been a fire and said that reactor number three was shut down as a precaution.

He added: “According to the international scale of emergencies at nuclear stations this event level is zero.

“The radioactive and ecological situations did not change.”

Monday's fire started at 9.07pm local time and it took about an hour to fully extinguish it, by 10.05pm (8.05pm BST), he said.

The plant was reconnected to the Ukrainian grid several minutes before midnight after the blaze was killed, say reports.

It comes after Ukraine last week marked the 33rd anniversary of the notorious Chernobyl explosion which sent radioactive pollution across Europe.

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In the early hours of April 26, 1986, one of four nuclear reactors exploded in the worst nuclear disaster in human history.

Its number four reactor overheated and generated a blast equivalent to 500 nuclear bombs going off.

The catastrophe released at least 100 times more radiation than the atom bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

Soviet authorities waited 24 hours before evacuating the nearby town of Pripyat - giving the 50,000 residents just three hours to leave their homes.

6 The cause of the dramatic incident is so far unknown Credit: East2west News

6 The blaze broke out in the transformer of the third reactor unit at Rivne, which was built in 1986, the same year the Chernobyl nuclear station exploded in Soviet Ukraine Credit: East2west News

6 The Chernobyl reactor after the explosion, April 26, 1986 Credit: Getty - Contributor

6 An aerial view of the Chernobyl power plant, the site of the world's worst nuclear accident Credit: Getty - Contributor

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