What are the precautions Indias nuclear power stations have taken to prevent Chernobyl type of accident?
Chernobyl accident resulted from a serious violation of a number of safety procedures. In addition, the RBMK reactors of the Chernobyl station had inherent weaknesses in the design due to an unstable zone at low power level operations. Moreover, the reactors did not have an overall containment system. Chernobyl reactors are graphite moderated with large volume of graphite material in the core. This aggravated the fire following the accident due to the inflammable nature of graphite and its reaction with hot light water coolant. Indian reactors have two independent fast acting (21 x 3 sec.) shutdown systems while Chernobyl had only one slow (20 seconds) shutdown system. Also 140 tons. cold moderator heavy water and 500 tons of cold light water in the reactor vault around the reactor vessel makes it highly improbable for the core to melt and spread. In India, a comprehensive review of the accident at Chernobyl was undertaken, and it has been concluded that the accident of this type that
