India has nuke event - employee sabotage? - "malevolent act"

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Situation Update No. 1
On 28.11.2009 at 19:33 GMT+2

Over 55 workers of the Kaiga Atomic Power Station in Uttara Kannada district, Karnataka, had to undergo medical treatment after they were exposed to excessive radiation dosage when they drank water that had been mixed with tritium, a highly radioactive substance. Top officials of the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited blamed the incident on “an insider’s mischief.” They alleged that “an insider had mixed tritium in the drinking water in the water cooler kept in the operating island of the first unit” at Kaiga. The incident took place on November 25, when the first unit (220 MWe) was under shutdown for maintenance. Asked specifically whether security was so lax at the plant that a worker could access a bottle containing tritium, an authoritative official said there were sampling points in the reactor building from where workers took vials containing radioactive substances to the chemical laboratories for analysis. “There are standard protocols for handling and managing the transportation and depositing of such radioactive substances. Some insider has played the mischief,” the official said. The incident was detected when the workers’ urine samples showed an excess of tritium.


Situation Update No. 2
On 29.11.2009 at 03:54 GMT+2

In a nuclear accident that is bound to raise key safety concerns ahead of India’s ambitious atomic expansion programme, about 45 employees of the Kaiga atomic power plant suffered radiation poisoning when radioactive heavy water from the plant contaminated the drinking water. Kaiga is one of India’s newer nuclear reactors. There was no official word from the usually secretive nuclear establishment. Sources said the employees were in hospital because they experienced a mildly higher level of radiation than permissible on Friday after drinking from a water cooler near an open area in one of the reactors. Though a tiny amount of radiation is normal, scientists said the contamination was unusual because the affected employees do not go into the actual reactor area but work around it. ‘‘With no exposure to the reactor directly, it was surprising to see them with mildly higher level of radiation,’’ was the only comment Kaiga station director A M Gupta had to offer.

Heavy water molecules have two atoms of deutrium instead of the hydrogen in drinkable water H2O. It can cause fatally high levels of toxicity in humans. The Nuclear Power Corporation, which runs Kaiga, did not respond to media queries over the nuclear accident. According to the deputy commissioner of Uttara Kannada N S Channappa Gowda, there were no casualties or injuries reported. ‘‘Investigation is on and we’ll probe how the (heavy) water got into the drinking water. For now, we have isolated the cooler and drinking water. Simultaneously, water testing is on,’’ said an NPC official, speaking on condition of anonymity. The contamination was detected when some of the affected employees felt a change in the pattern of urination. They were rushed to the doctor and all of them were tested and found normal. The employees even got back to work. However, tests confirmed radioactivity in the urine samples. Sources said some amount of used heavy water, used as a moderator in reactors that use natural uranium as fuel, had got into the cooler containing drinking water and contaminated it. This heavy water caused the higher radiation. NPC has not released the names of those hospitalised at NPC’s medical establishment at Malapur.


Situation Update No. 3
On 29.11.2009 at 12:16 GMT+2

Taking the Kaiga power plant incident "very seriously", the government today said that an inquiry into the "malevolent act" is already in progress and answers will be found soon. "There is some incident of a disgruntled employee who tried to put some heavy water into one of the water coolers at Kaiga. People who drank water from that cooler, were exposed to some level of contamination. It is being investigated. It is a malevolent act," minister of state for science and technology Prithviraj Chavan told PTI today. "It was not a nuclear leakage accident, not even a nuclear incident, and not even question of anything going wrong in the process of the nuclear power plant. It was the initial reaction. I spoke to Dr Kakodkar, there is no need to panic," he added. Chavan said that even if it was an act of a "disgruntled individual", it has to be seen and an inquiry is already in progress. "We will find answers soon," he said, adding that "I am told by the people inside that it is not a very serious contamination and the system will be cleared in a couple of days or two. But whatever has happened, has to be taken very seriously. We are of course, worried about the safety of the individuals". Chavan, however, gave an assurance that there won't be any harm to the people who drank water from that particular cooler. "They are being looked after medically," he said. The minister said prima facie it looks like that somebody did it. "Now who was that person? What happened? How did the person get access, and was it somebody working in the laboratory, are the things being looked at," Chavan said. B Bhattacharjee, member National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) told PTI the "Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) has sent a team of specialists to Kaiga to investigate the matter. "They will identify the person who has done this and will also seek to know whether internal unhappiness was the reason or whether there was some outside pressure on the person to carry out such an act". He further said "the sample of the water from the cooler has been sent for analysis. The AERB is treating this matter with utmost seriousness. They believe that it is a work of an insider as the chances of an outsider getting access to the place are next to remote".
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