The Hindu : Front Page : Kalpakkam nuclear reactors are completely safe: Kakodkar

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Dec 29, 2004

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Kalpakkam nuclear reactors are completely safe: Kakodkar

By T.S. Subramanian

CHENNAI, DEC. 28. Both the nuclear power reactors of the Madras Atomic Power Station (MAPS) at Kalpakkam "are completely safe" and "there is no threat of any radiation leak from them," Anil Kakodkar, Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission, asserted today.

Addressing a press conference at the MAPS site, he said water had not entered the turbine or the reactor buildings. The second reactor, shut down "instantaneously" on December 26 after a tsunami hit the eastern sea coast, including Kalpakkam, would be started up in five days, Dr. Kakodkar said. The first reactor had already been shut down for changing its coolant channels.

Reporters, who went round the MAPS including its turbine and reactor buildings, control room, and the sea water pump house, found that everything was normal. The tsunami had knocked down a security wall on the beach for some metres and sea water entered the pump house.

Asked why the second unit was shut down, Dr. Kakodkar said that an underground tunnel ferried the sea water to the pump house for cooling the reactors' condensers. When the tsunami struck, there was a rise in the sea water level, and the level in the pump house (which is a huge well) also built up. The equipment in the control room "sensed" this and the reactor shut down by itself. "Shutting down the reactor is a very fast process," he said. When the operator got "a signal that something was wrong with the sea water pump house," he put it in the safe shutdown mode. There was no casualty at the MAPS.

T.S. Rajendran, Station Director, MAPS, said that Atomic Energy Regulatory Board personnel would visit the second unit on December 29 and 30. After their inspection — the AERB is charged with maintaining safety in nuclear power stations — the reactor would be commissioned again in five days.

All over the world, nuclear power stations were located on the sea coast or near water bodies. Kalpakkam was chosen after taking into account the possibility of cyclones and tidal waves occurring. Tsunami was not factored into this, Dr. Kakodkar said. The events at the MAPS and the PFBR construction site showed they could withstand tsunami. For future nuclear power projects, tsunami would be taken into consideration.

The PFBR Project Director, Prabhat Kumar, said that the body of a woman construction worker was found this morning in the 17-metre deep foundation-pit of the Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) construction site. Concreting the foundation was under way at a depth of 17 metres when waves surged in. When a lookout alerted the workers, they climbed out on to the slopes. But a woman standing at the ground level was washed in. The pit was flooded.

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