Unsafe N-plant -- Pak suspects China supplied faulty design

Unsafe N-plant -- Pak suspects China supplied faulty design
UNITED NEWS OF INDIA

Islamabad, Jan 17: The Chinese-designed Chashma Nuclear Power Plant (Chasnupp) on the banks of the Indus river in Punjab is becoming a bone of contention between Pakistan and its most tested friend China. Sources claimed that there was a fire in the plant late last month but the government ensured it was not reported by the press.

Chasnupp will be a major subject of Pak-Sino discussion during Gen Pervez Musharraf's forthcoming visit to China, according to sources. Independent nuclear experts in Pakistan have never been at ease about the design and the location of this plant. This was brought out at a panel discussion on this plant at the sustainable policy development institute here last month. There was a view that Chasnupp was built on a very dangerous site and has design flaws which could lead to a major nuclear disaster.

Dr A H Nayyar of the physics department of Quaid-e-Azam university quoted a report of a Columbian university team, which made studies here, to say that the plant was located at aseismic fault and near the earthquake centre.

In addition to this, Dr Nayyar said China supplied Pakistan a faulty design which they themselves could not work. This plant is made on the model of the Chinese Qinshan power plant which has faced many problems. The Chinese government had to seek the help of foreign experts because it did not trust its own experts, he said.

But Chashma's main components were manufactured by China, which Dr Nayyar doubted, were not of international specification and quality. In fact China's own Qinshan-1 experienced an accident in July 1998. It resulted from vibrations generated by the high pressure cooling water. This accident alarmed Pakistan about Chinese honesty in providing it with a faulty model.

This model and the selection of the site had been bitterly criticised by former chief of Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC), Dr I H Usmani, in 1981. But Gen Zia-ul-Haq ordered that this should not be made a public issue.He did not want to alienate China at a time when,having executed former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who originally entered into the Chashma deal with China in 1974, he badly needed foreign support for his illegal rule.