03 March 2004 20:45
Greenpeace Russia urges "vulnerable" nuclear plants shutdown
MOSCOW. March 3 (Interfax) - The Russian office of Greenpeace has sent letters to the Atomic Energy Ministry and the
State Nuclear Supervision Committee, urging them to shut down nuclear power plants it considers the most vulnerable to
terrorist attacks, Greenpeace Russia press secretary Yelena Surovikina told Interfax.
"Our demand was made as a follow-up to a statement from the German Reactor Safety Authority [GRS] regarding the
vulnerability of German nuclear power plants to terrorist attacks. A GRS confidential report contains alarming
information that not a single reactor in Germany is protected from terrorist attacks from the air and that if a plane
were to crash into a reactor, possible radioactive emission could not be controlled," she said.
"Many Russian nuclear facilities are also very vulnerable to terrorists," Surovikina said.
"In our letters to the Atomic Energy Ministry and the State Nuclear Supervision Committee, we cite the basic
provisions from the German Reactor Safety Authority report. The letter suggests that nuclear reactor security in Russia
be revised once again and immediate action taken to replace and shut down the twelve oldest and least protected
Chernobyl-type RBMK reactors, which do not have an outer protective covering," the press secretary said.
"We feel the public should be made aware of the threat from nuclear reactors, especially in Russia, where the
Atomic Energy Ministry plans to build a nuclear power plant in the North Caucasus, near hotbeds of armed tension, or
install unprotected floating nuclear power plants operating on uranium fuel, which can be used to create nuclear
weapons," Surovikina said. [RU EUROPE ASIA EEU EMRG ELG ENV AER VIO] va aw
[Interfax] |
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