The unfolding tragedy at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan has brought India’s most modern and youngest nuclear power plant in Kaiga, near Karwar, into sharp focus.
The unfolding tragedy at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan has brought India’s most modern and youngest nuclear power plant in Kaiga, near Karwar, into sharp focus. The nuclear plant’s directors, SN Bhat and JP Gupta, claim that Kaiga is built on seismically stable land and it is located relatively inland and hence, out of reach of a tsunami similar to what struck Japan.
However, two major incidents involving human error indicate that the plant has a record of personnel with questionable ‘integrity’.
The Kaiga plant has hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons ever since it was commissioned. On May 13, 1994, an under-construction dome collapsed. This led to an international outcry and debate about India’s capabilities in constructing a safe nuclear installation. As a result of the dome collapse, Kaiga’s Unit 1 went critical after Unit 2.
Furthermore, personnel at Kaiga have lost two of their colleagues over the years. First, Ravi Molay disappeared under mysterious circumstances in January 2009. Later, in June 2009, another technician, Lokanath Mahalingam, was found dead along the Kali River, after he went missing for three days.
On November 25, 2009, tritium contamination was detected in some workers during a routine bioassay. A survey of the plant premises did not indicate heavy water leakage from any of the reactor systems, and general radiological conditions were normal on the premises, thereby indicating that tritium uptake of these persons were not due to plant system conditions.
In the garb of security and secrecy, the Nuclear Power Corporation (NPC) stonewalled details of its investigations into the tritium leak.
Even the jurisdictional magistrate, deputy commissioner (who is also chairman of the District Disaster Management Committee) and police were denied access. Uttara Kannada’s former deputy commissioner Chennappa Gowda said: “We have to take care of people in case of a disaster, so we have the right to be informed. We know nuclear information must have utmost secrecy, but that should not stop officials from holding back vital information from us, particularly matters that interests a large number of people.”
Investigations indicated that the source of tritium ingestion was due to drinking water from one of the water coolers, which was contaminated. Six vials of tritium were found inside the water cooler. “It could not have been a prank. It was a normal route of smuggling tritium. This time, somebody dumped it into the water cooler as they were afraid of being caught,” says BV Pai, an anti-nuclear activist in Karwar.
Tritium is a low beta emission material and if the quantity exposed to the atmosphere is high, it may cause cancers in those living in surrounding areas, he adds. Tritium is a volatile material and could be used for putting together a triggering mechanism in a thermonuclear fusion device. Tritium is also an isotope of hydrogen and it is the main element used in hydrogen bombs, say senior faculty members at Mangalore University.
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