Indian Frail Nuclear Safety and Security Fostering Nuclear Accidents

Sarah Khan

India remains one of the worst countries in terms of nuclear safety and security at its nuclear installations due to non-adherence to International Atomic Energy Agency’s set guidelines for safe and secure operation of nuclear facilities. There have been numerous accidents at various facilities in India. The latest accident occurred at Kakrapar Atomic Power Station in Indian state of Gujarat in March 2016. On-site emergency was declared in Kakrapar late evening on March 11 although the accident happened in the morning. Irony of the matter is, India seldom provides any details on nuclear accidents occurring in its territory. Due to non-availability of required mechanism for radiation protection, the poor and ignorant Indians remain exposed to nuclear radiations.

The incident at  Kalpakkam Reprocessing Plant (KARP) on 21 January 2003, which led to the indefinite shutting down of the plant, raised serious questions over the safety of the production of potential weapons-grade plutonium at KARP, and also the safety of workers and human habitations around Kalpakkam. Concerned members of the scientific community feel that if safety issues aren't quickly addressed and made transparent, Kalpakkam may be a mini-Chernobyl in the making. Previous two major incidents at the KARP facility, in which workers were overexposed to radiation, in December 2002 and May 2001, both in the Plutonium Reconversion Area, and how higher officials had always cited emergency as a reason for the Health Physics Department not following safety procedures. Finally, it warned that "if the plant continues to be operated in the same fashion, it will be clear invitation of more serious accidents like criticality which is the only accident yet to happen in KARP." Only after a month in January 2003, the accident again occurred at KARP which was ample proof for non-serious attitude of India towards nuclear safety and security.

Below is a list of leaks, fires and structural damages that have occurred in India’s civilian nuclear power sector.  

April 2011 Fire alarms blare in the control room of the Kaiga Generating Station in Karnataka.  Comments 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.  Details from the AERB are awaited. 

November 2009 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 “an insider’s mischief”.

April 2003 Six tonnes leak of heavy water at reactor II of the Narora Atomic  Power Station (NAPS) in Uttar Pradesh, indicating safety measures have not been improved from the leak at the same reactor three years previously.

January 2003 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. The leaking area of the plant had no radiation monitors or mechanisms to detect valve failure, which may have prevented the employees’ exposure. A safety committee had previously recommended that the plant be shut down.  The management blames the “over enthusiasm” of the workers.

May 2002 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.  An estimated 22.2 Curies of radioactivity is released into the environment.

November 2001 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 .

April 2000 Leak of about seven tonnes of heavy water from the moderator system at NAPS Unit II. Various workers involved in the clean-up received ‘significant uptakes of tritium’, although only one had a radiation dose over the recommended annual limit.

March 1999 Somewhere between four and fourteen tonnes 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 . Forty-two people are reportedly involved in mopping up the radioactive liquid.

May 1994 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, injuring fourteen workers. The dome had already been completed, forming the part of the reactor designed to prevent escape of radioactive material into the environment in the case of an accident.  Fortunately, the core had not then been loaded.

February 1994 Helium gas and heavy water leak in Unit 1 of RAPS.  The plant is shut down until March 1997.

March 1993 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.  The smoke sensors fail to detect the fire, which is only noticed once workers see the flames.  It causes a blackout in the plant, including the shutdown of the secondary cooling systems, and power is not restored for seventeen hours.  In the meantime, operators have to manually activate the primary shutdown system.  They also climb onto the roof to open valves to slow the reactions in the core by hand (16).  The incident was rated as a Level 3 on the International Nuclear Event Scale, INES.

May 1992 Tube leak causes a radioactive release of 12 Curies of radioactivity from Tarapur Atomic Power Station.

January 1992 Four tons of heavy water spilt at RAPS.

December 1991 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.

July 1991 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.

March 1991 Heavy water leak at MAPS takes four days to clean up.

Despite IAEA’s Convention on Radiological Emergency in Case of Nuclear Accidents which calls for immediate reporting of nuclear accident to IAEA and close neighbors of the country in which accident took place, the Department of Atomic Energy adheres to secrecy even about nuclear accidents. The above quoted are few of the reported accidents, there may be many other accidents that we do not know about. US and many other major powers signing nuclear agreements with India must first ensure that India must adhere to Additional Protocol and follow IAEA’s standards of nuclear safety and security for safe operation of nuclear plants. In the absence of any such adherences the poor ignorant Indians will remain exposed to radiations as a result of unreported nuclear accidents. Moreover, it will pose serious risk of radiological dispersal to neighboring states as well.