This was revealed by physicist Dr Abdul Hameed Nayyar, who is one of the petitioners against the construction of nuclear reactors, at a press conference at Karachi Press Club on Thursday.
Nayyar, a former physics professor at Quaid-e-Azam University, said that the plants K2 and K3 with a capacity of 1,100 megawatt each, will affect the livelihoods of fishermen. Marine life will be destroyed. And in case of a disaster or accident, the impact would be devastating.
The chairperson of the Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum (PFF), Mohammad Ali Shah, said that the nuclear plants were unsafe as they were lying on a fault line. If the epicentre of an earthquake is Makran, tides as high as 10 metres can reach in just about 1.5 hours. “After five or six years, two more plants, K4 and K5 are expected to be constructed,” he said, adding that will bring 4,400MW of electricity closer to the coast.”
All over the world, nuclear power plants are built at least 30 kilometres away from the population. “But here, the population is only 15 kilometres away from the plant,” said Nayyar.
Public hearings
Nayyar said no public hearings have been held on this issue and if an Environmental Impact Assessment of the project was held, then it should be made public.
Nayyar was of the opinion that Karachi’s public and civil society should be asked for their opinions after the details and impact of the plants are shared with them. He added that all over the world, countries are shutting down their nuclear plants. “Germany has decided to close down 17 nuclear power plants,” he said. “But here, in Pakistan, we are building more.”
The Chinese concern
According to Nayyar, the Chinese are making reactors on new designs that have existed on paper only. “The Chinese will be making 15 per cent of the components for these reactors for the first time,” he said. “Karachi will be an experimental ground for them. These components have not been tested or tried before.”
Six people have already gone to court against the construction of these reactors. A stay order has been placed on their construction. Earlier this year, the nuclear plant project director held a press conference in which he denied all these accusations. “The reactors of the Karachi nuclear power project - K-2 and K-3 - are more safe and sophisticated than those of Fukushima,” said project director Azfar Minhaj. “The highest tsunami height expected in Karachi is about 2.8 metres above sea level, while the K-2 and K-3 ground level is 12 metres above the mean sea level,” he said, adding that they have collected all the instrumental, historical data of earthquakes in the history of Karachi.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 5th, 2014.
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