California, April 13: At least five nuclear reactors in the US are located in earthquake-prone zones which could trigger a crisis similar to that which hit the Fukushima plant in Japan.
According to the mapping and geographic data firm ESRI Inc, the at-risk reactors are the Diablo Canyon Power Plant and San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in California; the South Texas Project near the Gulf Coast; the Waterford Steam Electric Station in Louisiana; and the Brunswick Steam Electric Plant in North Carolina., USA Today reported.
Ever since Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster in March, US President Barack Obama has ordered an earthquake risk evaluation of the country’s nuclear plants, said Victor Dricks, a Governmental Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman.
He added the US has taken measures to ensure the safety of its plants.
San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in California, for example, is built with a high earthquake tolerance of up to 7.0 magnitude.
Also, the plant is 30 feet above sea level and has a reinforced concrete sea wall that is 30 feet tall and could withstand a 27-foot tsunami.
The ESRI online map is the first of its kind and aims to help the public in America determine the risk of potential earthquakes. People can simply plug in their location and find the five nearest nuclear plants.
“We found that we’re just on the cusp of the evacuation zone of the San Onofre plant, just down the coast on the ocean side. Right around our area there have been three earthquakes. We’re in a highly dense area for faults. We can feel that. We can feel tremors every week,” said ESRI analyst Bronwyn Agrios.
There are over 100 operating nuclear reactors across the US and 23 of them are the same Mark-1 reactors that have come close to melting down in Japan.
Japan’s March 11 earthquake, which unleashed a 23-foot (7-meter) tsunami, set off a nuclear crisis by knocking out power to the cooling systems of reactors at the Fukushima plant, leading to radiation leakage.
Japanese authorities have raised the severity rating of the nuclear crisis to the highest level, seven.
Level seven previously only applied to the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union.
——–Agencies