Chennai, November 29. Workers at the Kaiga atomic power plant in Karnataka are a shaken lot after the drinking water of a laboratory cooler was found contaminated with radioactive Tritium, suspected to be an act of sabotage.
Fifty-five employees drank the contaminated water on November 24 and were hospitalised. Many of them were discharged later.
The incident that took place at the Unit 1 reactor building of the Kaiga generating station has left the employees completely shaken and has introduced an element of suspicion among them, said an official on condition of anonymity.
The Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL), which owns the nuclear power plants including Kaiga, has launched a probe into the radiation leak. Tritium can cause cancer if ingested.
“Everybody has implicit faith in their colleagues at the work place and more so in the case of critical operations. This has got shaken now at Kaiga,” maintained a NPCIL official.
JP Gupta, station director at Kaiga, told IANS over phone: “We have a list of the people who had entered the reactor building that day. The investigating agencies are analysing the data.”
Denying any problem at the plant, Gupta said: “It is true that employees will be more vigilant now about their colleagues till the culprit is nabbed.”According to a statement issued by SK Jain, CMD of NPCIL, preliminary enquiries have not revealed any violation of operating procedures or radioactivity releases or security breach.
“It is possibly an act of mischief. The related agencies are investigating,” Jain’s statement said.
According to Gupta, the heavy water (Tritium) could have been taken from the reactor building (Unit 1), or from samples of the heavy water kept for analysis, or from outside where it is stored in sealed drums. — IANS
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2009/20091130/nation.htm#21
