Ever since the tsunami killer waves pounded the coast of Tamil Nadu on December 26, 2004, local communities and concerned citizens have asked the government questions regarding the affect of the Tsunami on the nuclear plant in Kalpakkam. Udaykumar says that the government has maintained an eerie silence while circumstantial evidence suggests accidents may have occurred.

For all serious questions, there has been only one devious answer from the DAE. The nuclear department and the government of India simply do not want to acknowledge the dangers of the deadly combination of tsunamis and nuclear power stations. Of course, there have been rainouts (as in Albany-Troy in the United States on April 26, 1953), overflow of water storage facility (that released 50,000 gallons of radioactive waste water into the Mississippi river in Monticello, Minnesota on November 19, 1971) and even complete submerge of a nuclear reactor (as in the Kursk tragedy in August 2000 in Barents Sea). According to Greenpeace, there are ten nuclear reactors and over fifty nuclear warheads on the floors of the world’s oceans. But this is the first time tsunami waves have hit an existing nuclear power plant (at Kalpakkam) and an under-construction plant (at Koodankulam) in Tamil Nadu, India.

Although the Government of India took the possibility of a radioactive tsunami seriously by deputing the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) Chief to Kalpakkam, the haughty high-priests of the Indian nukedom were tight-lipped about possible radiation leak from the tsunami attack on the Kalpakkam plant. The incorrigible DAE took a few gullible journalists around the plant but was never willing to let an independent group of experts to inspect the installations. In fact, the so-called largest democracy on the Earth has barred the UN Secretary General and major international aid organizations from visiting Tamil Nadu.

At the upcoming Koodankulam Nuclear Power Plant near the southern tip of India, the tsunami’s impact was less severe as in the other coastal villages of Tirunelveli district. However, workers were evacuated out of the plant site on December 30, 2004 and people in the area were keenly watching the developments as there were series of aftershocks (and some of them were quite massive) off of the Andaman islands and Indonesia on December 31, 2004 and even on the New Year’s Day.

Quite remarkably, no Indian politician has uttered a single word about the deadly combination of tsunami and radioactivity. The pompous Tamil politicians who speak in insincere hyperbolic language about the welfare of the Tamil race and their own willingness to sacrifice their lives for us have said little about all this. In fact, some of them have written free verses about the faults of the sea and the faults of the Earth for the tsunami disaster. They have no integrity to acknowledge their own negligence of duty in failing to create a safety culture in the country by promoting human worth and dignity and putting in place some early warning mechanisms.

Most of the religious leaders are preoccupied with their heavenly escapades and divine transactions and can care little about the ionizing radiation of atoms. The mass media in India also tread carefully when it comes to the nuclear department. Some of them make scintillating stories out of non-existent and nonsensical issues but sing the glory of the DAE vying for the lucrative advertisement monies from the nukedom. When the Movement Against Nuclear Weapons (MANW) conducted a press meet at Chennai on January 10, 2005 on the Kalpakkam and Koodankulam developments, most of the Indian press chose to follow the release of an imprisoned brahmin priest.

Some Private Volunteer Organizations do take interest in this tsunami and radioactivity issue but they cannot do much as they rely on government grants and patronage. The Indian government is thinking of enforcing the Coastal Protection Zone and preventing any construction within 500 meters from the sea. If fisher people cannot be within 500 meters from the sea, how can a nuclear power plant be built within the CPZ limits. The Kalpakkam reprocessing plant is said to be only 150 meters away from the sea. Maybe, the Indian nukedom, which has not had any experience of decommissioning nuclear power plants, is thinking of “at-sea decommissioning” of Kalpakkam and other plants as the nuclear industry all over the world simply scuttles naval nuclear reactors.

If the government moves all the fishing villages beyond 500 meters from the sea, they must make sure that government agencies such as the Indian Rare Earths Limited and private operators should not be allowed to mine the sea sand for rare minerals such as monosite, thorium, certium, garnet, rutile, ilmenite, sillimanite, zircon etc. These sand barons do away with the sand dunes and the tree cover and have contributed to the decimation of coastal villages and destruction of so many lives. The government should also make sure that no hotels and resorts are built within the CPZ limit.

As far as the Koodankulam plant is concerned, no Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report, or the site evaluation study report or the safety analysis report has been shared with the local public and the larger nation. Even after the tsunami attack on our coast, the DAE officials do not feel the need to allay the environmental concerns and the safety fears of the local people. All this arrogance betrays the anti-democratic nature and anti-people tendencies of the DAE. As the battered Tamil nation is huddled together fearing for their safety and well-being, the Koodankulam authorities are celebrating the arrival of the reactor pressure vessel from Russia.

When all is said and done, Kalpakkam and Koodankulam continue to be in the news. A Tamil daily Dinakaran (January 20, 2005) has just reported a widespread fear of radiation leak at the Kalpakkam nuclear power plant and that foreign experts are coming on January 24 to fix the problem. But Kalpakkam authorities have claimed that there has been no radiation leak. A Sun TV news report on January 20 has pointed out that the sea in Kalpakkam area has been unusually rough and has advised people not to go near the sea. But hasn’t it been the issue of the sea coming to get the people, possibly with radioactive reactors and their leftovers.

SACCER (South Asian Community Center for Education and Research) promoting life-long, life-wide and life-deep education
S.P. Udayakumar, 42/27 Esankai Mani Veethy, Parakkai Road Jn, Nagercoil 629 002, Tamil Nadu, India
Ph: 91-4652-240657/253295
Email: drspudayakumar@yahoo.com, spuk@vsnl.net

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The Tsunami Disaster: A Perspective from Koodankulam
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