Civil society organisations, workers and fishermen rights activists have expressed concern over inauguration by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on 20th August of next phase of the construction of two large Chinese-supplied nuclear power plants next to Karachi.
In a joint statement issued on Friday, Executive Director of Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (PILER) Karamat Ali, Chairperson of Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum (PFF) Mohammad Ali Shah, Roland deSouza of Shehri-Citizens for better environment, senior scientist and president of Pakistan Peace Coalition Dr A H Nayyar, senior architect Arif Belguami, Asad Iqbal Butt of Human Rights Commission of Pakistan Karachi, stated that this project was moving forward with reckless disregard for the safety and well-being of the 20 million people who live in Karachi.
The federal and Sindh governments have failed to take seriously the risks from these nuclear power plants and the potentially devastating consequences of a nuclear accident. The approval of this project has come without proper public consultation and has involved repeated failures to uphold environmental laws that are supposed to protect the public.
The disregard for public consultations and legal obligations was evident when initially the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report was submitted in utmost secrecy not made public and there was no public consultation process. SEPA became a part of this recklessness when it first approved the initial EIA report in haste without public consultation, even though such consultation was required by law, and then, following the orders of the Sindh High Court on public interest litigation, held a public hearing of a freshly submitted EIA in a most objectionable manner. Giving its hasty approval, SEPA chose to overlook a number of objections raised by the public. It violated its own laws by failing to inform the commentators why their critical comments were rejected or ignored. SEPA’s approval glossed over serious threats to public interests and the environment, the statement said.
SEPA and PNRA have also callously overlooked the fact that the reactor spent fuel storage pool could also face an accident, and that in such an event there is nothing that can stop a very high level of most lethal radioactivity to be dispersed in the direction of some of the densest population centres of Karachi.
They complained that SEPA in giving a blanket approval has failed to challenge the PAEC into including, as required by its own laws, alternative sources of electricity like wind and solar power that are most rapidly growing sources of electric power all over the world. Even in China, annual growth in nuclear power plants is only 5-10% of that in wind energy power plants.
Besides risks to life, the project completely ignores the social and economic consequences of a major nuclear accident on Karachi, or how people will be evacuated. The project proponents have not considered the effect of a serious reactor accident on the industries and businesses in Karachi. What is most alarming is the unreasonable refusal on the part of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) to accept that lethal radioactivity could breach the reactor area into the environment, putting in grave danger lives and wellbeing of the 20 million population of Karachi. Most of the time of the year wind blows from the reactor site towards the city. Yet PAEC, SEPA and PNRA refuse to accept the international recommendation of sitting nuclear power reactors at least 30 km away from population centres, and instead deem it sufficient to protect only a sparsely populated area up to 5 km around the reactor site. PAEC has no plans to protect the Karachi city population, including evacuating it, in case a severe accident happens at the reactor.
