India currently has twenty nuclear reactors in operation and their safety record is far from clean.<\/i><\/p>\n
Below is a list of leaks, fires and structural damages that have occurred in India\u2019s civilian nuclear power sector. \u00a0Numerous other examples of oil leaks, hydrogen leaks, fires and high bearing vibrations have often shut plants, and sometimes not (1).<\/p>\n
As the Department of Atomic Energy is not obliged to reveal details of ongoings at these plants to the public, there may be many other accidents that we do not know about.<\/p>\n
April 2011<\/b> Fire alarms blare in the control room of the Kaiga Generating Station in Karnataka. \u00a0Comments by officials alternately say there was no fire, that there was only smoke and no fire, and that the fire was not in a sensitive area (2). \u00a0Details from the AERB are awaited.<\/p>\n
November 2009<\/b> Fifty-five employees consume radioactive material after tritiated water finds its way into the drinking water cooler in Kaiga Generating Station. The NPCIL attributes the incident to \u201can insider\u2019s mischief\u201d (3).<\/p>\n
April 2003<\/b> Six tonnes leak of heavy water at reactor II of the Narora Atomic \u00a0Power Station (NAPS) in Uttar Pradesh (4), indicating safety measures have not been improved from the leak at the same reactor three years previously.<\/p>\n
January 2003<\/b> Failure of a valve in the Kalpakkam Atomic Reprocessing Plant in Tamil Nadu results in the release of high-level waste, exposing six workers to high doses of radiation (5). The leaking area of the plant had no radiation monitors or mechanisms to detect valve failure, which may have prevented the employees\u2019 exposure. A safety committee had previously recommended that the plant be shut down. \u00a0The management blames the \u201cover enthusiasm\u201d of the workers (6).<\/p>\n
May 2002<\/b> Tritiated water leaks from a downgraded heavy water storage tank at the tank farm of Rajasthan Atomic Power Station (RAPS) 1&2 into a common dyke area. \u00a0An estimated 22.2 Curies of radioactivity is released into the environment (7).<\/p>\n
November 2001<\/b> A leak of 1.4 tonnes of heavy water at the NAPS I reactor, resulting in one worker receiving an internal radiation dose of 18.49 mSv (8).<\/p>\n
April 2000<\/b> Leak of about seven tonnes of heavy water from the moderator system at NAPS Unit II. Various workers involved in the clean-up received \u2018significant uptakes of tritium\u2019, although only one had a radiation dose over the recommended annual limit (9).<\/p>\n
March 1999<\/b> Somewhere between four and fourteen tonnes (10) of heavy water leaks from the pipes at Madras Atomic Power Station (MAPS) at Kalpakkam, Tamil Nadu, during a test process. The pipes have a history of cracks and vibration problems (11) . Forty-two people are reportedly involved in mopping up the radioactive liquid (12).<\/p>\n
May 1994<\/b> The inner surface of the containment dome of Unit I of Kaiga Generating Station collapses (delaminates) while the plant is under construction. Approximately 130 tonnes of concrete fall from a height of nearly thirty metres (13), injuring fourteen workers. The dome had already been completed (14), forming the part of the reactor designed to prevent escape of radioactive material into the environment in the case of an accident. \u00a0Fortunately, the core had not then been loaded.<\/p>\n
February 1994<\/b> Helium gas and heavy water leak in Unit 1 of RAPS. \u00a0The plant is shut down until March 1997 (15).<\/p>\n
March 1993<\/b> Two blades of the turbine in NAPS Unit I break off, slicing through other blades and indirectly causing a raging fire, which catches onto leaked oil and spreads through the turbine building. \u00a0The smoke sensors fail to detect the fire, which is only noticed once workers see the flames. \u00a0It causes a blackout in the plant, including the shutdown of the secondary cooling systems, and power is not restored for seventeen hours. \u00a0In the meantime, operators have to manually activate the primary shutdown system. \u00a0They also climb onto the roof to open valves to slow the reactions in the core by hand (16). \u00a0The incident was rated as a Level 3 on the International Nuclear Event Scale, INES.<\/p>\n
May 1992<\/b> Tube leak causes a radioactive release of 12 Curies of radioactivity from Tarapur Atomic Power Station (17).<\/p>\n
January 1992<\/b> Four tons of heavy water spilt at RAPS (17).<\/p>\n
December 1991<\/b> A leak from pipelines in the vicinity of CIRUS and Dhruva research reactors at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) in Trombay, Maharashtra, results in severe Cs-137 soil contamination of thousands of times the acceptable limit. Local vegetation was also found to be contaminated, though contract workers digging to the leaking pipeline were reportedly not tested for radiation exposure, despite the evidence of their high dose (18).<\/p>\n
July 1991<\/b> A contracted labourer mistakenly paints the walls of RAPS with heavy water before applying a coat of whitewash. He also washed his paintbrush, face and hands in the deuterated and tritiated water, and has not been traced since (19).<\/p>\n
March 1991<\/b> Heavy water leak at MAPS takes four days to clean up (20).<\/p>\n
Sources:<\/b><\/p>\n
1<\/b> For more details, see \u2018Safety First? Kaiga and Other Nuclear Stories\u2019 by M.V. Ramana and Ashwin Kumar, Economic & Political Weekly, Vol XLV No. 7, 13 February 2010. \u00a0The article lists many of the accidents shown here, and others.<\/p>\n
2<\/b> M. Raghuram, \u201cKaiga officials are tight-lipped about control room fire\u201d DNA, 11 April 2011;
\n\u201cIt was a faulty fire alarm, says Kaiga Director\u201d, ndtv.com, 11 April 2011.<\/p>\n
3 <\/b>T.S. Subramanian, \u2018Kaiga workers \u201cback to work\u201d\u2019, The Hindu, 29 November 2009<\/p>\n
4 <\/b>Annual Report for the Year 2003-2004, Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, Mumbai.<\/p>\n
5<\/b> S. Anand, \u2018India\u2019s Worst Radiation Accident\u2019, Outlook, 28 July 2003, 18-20<\/p>\n
6<\/b> M.R. Venkatesh, \u2018BARC Admits Radiation Error\u2019, Telegraph, 7 August 2003<\/p>\n
7<\/b> Annual Report for the Year 2002-2003, Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, Mumbai.<\/p>\n
8<\/b> Annual Report for the Year 2001-2002, Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, Mumbai.<\/p>\n
9<\/b> Annual Report for the Year 2000-2001, Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, Mumbai.<\/p>\n
10<\/b> The figure is contested \u2013 see T. S. Subramanian, \u201cAn Incident at Kalpakkam,\u201d Frontline, 23 April 1999<\/p>\n
11<\/b> T.S. Gopi Rethinaraj, \u2018In The Comfort Of Secrecy,\u2019 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 55 (6) 52-57, 1999<\/p>\n
12<\/b> T.S. Subramanian, \u201cAn Incident at Kalpakkam\u201d, Frontline, Vol 16, Issue 8, 23 April 1999<\/p>\n
13<\/b> Buddhi Kota Subbarao, \u2018India\u2019s Nuclear Prowess: False Claims and Tragic Truths\u2019, Manushi 109, 1998<\/p>\n
14<\/b> Sanjay Havanur, \u201cThe Dome of Death\u201d, Anumukti, 7 (6):4-5, 1994<\/p>\n
15<\/b> T.S. Subramanian, \u2018Reviving Reactors\u2019 Frontline, Vol 14, No. 26, Dec 1997 – Jan 1998<\/p>\n
16<\/b> M.V. Ramana and Ashwin Kumar, \u2018Safety First? Kaiga and Other Nuclear Stories\u2019, Economic & Political Weekly, Vol XLV No. 7, 13 February 2010<\/p>\n
17<\/b> Greenpeace, Calendar of Nuclear Accidents and Events http:\/\/archive.greenpeace.org\/comms\/nukes\/chernob\/rep02.html<\/a><\/p>\n 18<\/b> Chinai, Rupa: \u201cRadioactive Leakage at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre\u201d, The Sunday Observer, 6 September 1992<\/p>\n 19<\/b> RP \u201cA Heavy Whitewash\u201d, translated from Hindi, Rajasthan Patrika, 21 August 1991<\/p>\n 20<\/b> \u201cNational Symposium on Safety of Nuclear Power Plants and Other Facilities\u201d, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Trombay, Bombay.<\/p>\n