Ripples from Japan help create wave of protest in Tamil Nadu

Now,months ahead of the plant’s scheduled December commissioning,hundreds of villagers of Koodankulam and Idinthakarai have come together in an agitation demanding its scrapping. Of them,127 including women and children; the aged,the ailing and the disabled; students and activists; nuns and Christian priests and Sangh Parivar cadres have been on hunger strike at the St Lourdes Mary Church since last week,refusing to accept assurances by plant officials,district authorities and the government. And the protests are gradually spreading to neighbouring areas.

“When the project was mooted,the threat perception was understated as merely hypothetical. Even the Chernobyl accident was too far away for the public to take notice. It was too complicated a science for them to understand. It all changed with Fukushima where a tsunami brought about a horrifying disaster,the consequences of which will be felt in the coming decades. Now they realise the fate here could be the same,” said S P Udayakumar,one of the local organisers of the agitation.

If the extensively covered Fukushima disaster raised suspicions,a mandatory disaster preparedness drill last month proved the last straw. “They were asked to run as fast as they could,as far away as possible,taking shelter from the deadly radiation that would be emitted from the plant if there was an accident. That set the alarm bells ringing,” said M Pushparayan,convener,Coastal People’s Federation.

The paranoia brought together villagers across caste,religious and political barriers,a camaraderie rarely seen in Tamil Nadu. In front of the church where the fast is being staged,along with the Christian priests and nuns are cadres of the RSS and the Siva Sena,environmental and human rights activists and those from working class organisations,students and homemakers. Black flags flutter on the roads and on fishing boats,while organisations like Greenpeace are campaigning online. Political parties too,after silence initially,have expressed solidarity with the cause.

As Sister Beena Alphonsa puts it,it is about the value of hundreds of lives that could be in danger. “Progress can be achieved through a different route; this is a real problem. We are deeply scared that something serious is going to happen,which will affect not just these villages but across the region from Madurai to Kollam in Kerala that is not far away from here,” said the nun,who is fasting and also attending to protesters whose health is failing.

Several attempts by the state government have failed to achieve a breakthrough. Ministers S P Shanmuganathan,S T Chellapandian and P Chendurpandian,and local MLAs held preliminary talks with the Bishop of Tuticorin,Yvon Ambroise,but failed to convince the protesters in subsequent discussions. Even an appeal by Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa assuring their safety and stressing the necessity of the plant was rejected,with villagers arguing that a nuclear calamity would too disastrous to be contained by any government anywhere.

According to M Kasinath Balaji,site director of KKNPP,several sophisticated features have been incorporated to address eventualities,even if unlikely. The reactors are placed inside a 1.20-metre-thick primary containment structure of pre-stressed concrete. The inner surface is lined with leak-proof steel plates,and this again is in a secondary containment structure 0.60 metres thick. “These measures would protect the reactor from natural calamities like a tsunami,an earthquake or even explosions,” Balaji said.

The structures have been placed 7.50 metres above mean sea level,which is higher than expected tsunami levels as assessed by the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services under the Ministry of Earth Sciences,while a shore protection bund of similar height offers another layer of protection. Besides,he added,in the event of a shutdown,there are four diesel generators to cool each reactor whereas only one is actually required; a unique Passive Heat Removal System if the generators fail; and 12 hydro accumulators to keep the reactor core cool.

But the people here argue that accidents and calamities are always unforeseen. “We hadn’t even heard of a tsunami till one struck our coasts. How can they assure that the height of waves will be less than 7.5 metres? Didn’t the French plant that had an accident recently have all such safety features? The government should consider the recent accidents and take the lead of countries like Germany who are phasing out nuclear power,” said P Selvan,a local youth who is among the protesters.