Mystery hangs over fire mishap at Indian nuclear centre at Trombay

CHENNAI - Sreekumar Banerjee, Director of Centre and Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) has said a panel of experts is still probing the cause of last week’s fire mishap in a chemical laboratory in the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) at Trombay in Mumbai in which two research students were burnt to death.

Talking to reporters here on Monday, Banerjee said: “There were two spectrometers and some preparatory chemicals but there was not such a large inventory of chemicals.

There was no cylinder, no hydrogen cylinder or any such inflammable that we say immediately that this is the cause of the fire. But we have a very strong group of specialists who are looking into it and examining different remains of that place and trying to work out that is it possible to build a scientific explanation that how that fire got introduced.”

Banerjee also said security has been reviewed at nuclear facilities across the country, though there were adequate safeguards.

“We have such a tight security that our own employees don’t enter there. So this is the basic philosophy of our security layers and that is there plus we need because our own security is there but this has been augmented very much on the basis of some of these threats that has come,” he said.

On India’s plans for nuclear energy, Banerjee said two more reactors would come up at Kudankulam nuclear power plant, being built with Russian aid in Tamil Nadu.

He also said that one unit of Kudankulam would become critical by the middle of this year. (ANI)