Ukraine's decrepit Chernobyl nuclear was restarted early Thursday in a symbolic gesture, the day before its final shutdown, Ukrainian official sources told AFP.
The reactor was restarted at 3.57 am (0157 GMT) and is working at a minimum level, the country's Energoatom nuclear agency told AFP.
But reactor number three, the only one still operational at the site of the world's worst civil nuclear accident in 1986, has been bedevilled in recent weeks by a string of emergency stoppages, and had been out of action since December 6.
However the Chernobyl plant, site of the world's worst civil nuclear accident in 1986, would only reach five percent capacity in its final and short-lived reprise, Energoatom added.
It was not due to produce any electricity during the final burst of activity before Friday's irreversible shutdown brokered as part of a 2.3-billion-dollar package from the world's seven most industrialised countries.
Kiev had previously set last Tuesday as the date for operations to resume at the troubled plant, which was shut down last week after a leak of radioactive steam was discovered.
Despite the latest delay, the Ukrainian authorities opted to reject the advice of nuclear experts who called for the shutdown to be brought forward in the light of Chernobyl's recent technical problems.
Ukraine has gone to great lengths to stage Friday's shutdown as an international media event and is apparently reluctant to cancel its plans.
Representatives from a dozen countries, including US Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, are expected to attend Friday's shutdown ceremony.
Ukraine President Leonid Kuchma is expected to give a nationwide television address at 1:00 pm (11OO GMT) Friday before pressing the button to halt Chernobyl's last reactor.
An estimated 15,000 to 30,000 people have died as a result of the April 26, 1986, explosion at Chernobyl's now defunct reactor number four, which spewed radiation into the atmosphere equivalent to 500 times that of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.
Chernobyl's reactor number two was destroyed in a fire in 1991, while number one was shut down in 1996 -- KIEV (AFP)
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