बेहरमपुर (उड़ीसा) (एजेंसी)। उग्र भीड़ ने यहां से लगभग साठ किलोमीटर दूर गंजम जिले में स्थित पत्थर तोड़ने की एक इकाई में एक महिला समेत सात लोगों को जलाकर मार डाला। एक वरिष्ठ पुलिस अधिकारी ने शनिवार को यहां यह जानकारी दी। उप पुलिस महानिरीक्षक (दक्षिण रेंज) आरके शर्मा ने बताया कि छह लोग इतनी बुरी तरह से जल गए हैं कि उनकी पहचान ही नहीं की जा सकती। इनलोगों का जला हुआ शव एक कमरे के अंदर से मिला है। उन्होंने कहा, हमें संदेह है कि हमलावरों ने डीजल या पेट्रोल का इस्तेमाल किया था।'
उन्होंने कहा कि हालांकि आग बुझाने के लिए असका और हिंजिली से दमकल की गाड़ियां घटनास्थल पर पहुंच गई थीं लेकिन दुर्भाग्यवश किसी को बचाया नहीं जा सका। शर्मा ने कहा कि इस इलाके में अक्सर स्थानीय लोगों की पत्थर तोड़ने की इकाइयों के मालिकों के साथ झड़प होने की सूचनाएं मिलती रहती हैं। स्थानीय लोगों को इलाके में पत्थर तोड़ने के लिए विस्फोट कराए जाने पर घोर आपत्ति है।
सोमवार, 2 मई 2011
गुरुवार, 28 अप्रैल 2011
A visit to Chernobyl (The Hindu- 28 April 2011)
Ban Ki-moon
The U.N. Secretary-General's five-point strategy to improve nuclear safety.
Twenty-five years ago, the explosion at Chernobyl cast a radioactive cloud over Europe and a shadow around the world. Today, the tragedy at Japan's Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant continues to unfold, raising popular fears and difficult questions.
Visiting Chernobyl a few days ago, I saw the reactor, still deadly but encased in concrete. The town itself was dead and silent — houses empty and falling into ruin, mute evidence of lives left behind, an entire world abandoned and lost to those who loved it.
More than 300,000 people were displaced in the Chernobyl disaster; roughly six million were affected. A swathe of geography half the size of Italy or my own country, the Republic of Korea, was contaminated.
It is one thing to read about Chernobyl from afar. It is another to see for it. For me, the experience was profoundly moving, and the images will stay with me for many years. I was reminded of a Ukrainian proverb: “There is no such thing as someone else's sorrow.” The same is true of nuclear disasters. There is no such thing as some other country's catastrophe.
As we are painfully learning once again, nuclear accidents respect no borders. They pose a direct threat to human health and the environment. They cause economic disruptions affecting everything from agricultural production to trade and global services.
This is a moment for deep reflection, a time for a real global debate. To many, nuclear energy looks to be a clean and logical choice in an era of increasing resource scarcity. Yet the record requires us to ask: have we correctly calculated its risks and costs? Are we doing all we can to keep the world's people safe?
Because the consequences are catastrophic, safety must be paramount. Because the impact is transnational, these issues must be debated globally.
That is why, visiting Ukraine for the 25th anniversary of the disaster, I put forward a five-point strategy to improve nuclear safety for our future:
- First, it is time for a top to bottom review of current safety standards, both at the national and international levels.
- Second, we need to strengthen the work of the International Atomic Energy Agency on nuclear safety.
- Third, we must put a sharper focus on the new nexus between natural disasters and nuclear safety. Climate change means more incidents of freak and increasingly severe weather. With the number of nuclear facilities set to increase substantially over the coming decades, our vulnerability will grow.
- Fourth, we must undertake a new cost-benefit analysis of nuclear energy, factoring in the costs of disaster preparedness and prevention as well as clean-up when things go wrong.
- Fifth and finally, we need to build a stronger connection between nuclear safety and nuclear security. At a time when terrorists seek nuclear materials, we can say with confidence that a nuclear plant that is safer for its community is also more secure for the world.
My visit to Chernobyl was not the first time I have travelled to a nuclear site. A year ago, I went to Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan, ground zero for nuclear testing in the former Soviet Union. Last summer in Japan, I met with the Hibakusha, survivors of the atomic blasts at Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
I went to these places to highlight the importance of disarmament. For decades, negotiators have sought agreement on limiting (and perhaps ultimately eliminating) nuclear weapons. And this past year, we have seen very encouraging progress.
With the memory of Chernobyl and, now, the disaster in Fukushima, we must widen our lens. Henceforth, we must treat the issue of nuclear safety as seriously as we do nuclear weapons.
The world has witnessed an unnerving history of near-accidents. It is time to face facts squarely. We owe it to our citizens to practice the highest standards of emergency preparedness and response, from the design of new facilities through construction and operation to their eventual decommissioning.
Issues of nuclear power and safety are no longer purely matters of national policy, alone. They are a matter of global public interest. We need international standards for construction, agreed guarantees of public safety, full transparency and information-sharing among nations.
Let us make that the enduring legacy of Chernobyl. Amid the silence there, I saw signs of life returning. A new protective shield is being erected over the damaged reactor. People are beginning to return. Let us resolve to dispel the last cloud of Chernobyl and offer a better future for people who have lived for too long under its shadow.
(Courtesy: UN Information Centre, New Delhi. Ban Ki-moon is the Secretary-General of the United Nations.)
The U.N. Secretary-General's five-point strategy to improve nuclear safety.
Twenty-five years ago, the explosion at Chernobyl cast a radioactive cloud over Europe and a shadow around the world. Today, the tragedy at Japan's Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant continues to unfold, raising popular fears and difficult questions.
Visiting Chernobyl a few days ago, I saw the reactor, still deadly but encased in concrete. The town itself was dead and silent — houses empty and falling into ruin, mute evidence of lives left behind, an entire world abandoned and lost to those who loved it.
More than 300,000 people were displaced in the Chernobyl disaster; roughly six million were affected. A swathe of geography half the size of Italy or my own country, the Republic of Korea, was contaminated.
It is one thing to read about Chernobyl from afar. It is another to see for it. For me, the experience was profoundly moving, and the images will stay with me for many years. I was reminded of a Ukrainian proverb: “There is no such thing as someone else's sorrow.” The same is true of nuclear disasters. There is no such thing as some other country's catastrophe.
As we are painfully learning once again, nuclear accidents respect no borders. They pose a direct threat to human health and the environment. They cause economic disruptions affecting everything from agricultural production to trade and global services.
This is a moment for deep reflection, a time for a real global debate. To many, nuclear energy looks to be a clean and logical choice in an era of increasing resource scarcity. Yet the record requires us to ask: have we correctly calculated its risks and costs? Are we doing all we can to keep the world's people safe?
Because the consequences are catastrophic, safety must be paramount. Because the impact is transnational, these issues must be debated globally.
That is why, visiting Ukraine for the 25th anniversary of the disaster, I put forward a five-point strategy to improve nuclear safety for our future:
- First, it is time for a top to bottom review of current safety standards, both at the national and international levels.
- Second, we need to strengthen the work of the International Atomic Energy Agency on nuclear safety.
- Third, we must put a sharper focus on the new nexus between natural disasters and nuclear safety. Climate change means more incidents of freak and increasingly severe weather. With the number of nuclear facilities set to increase substantially over the coming decades, our vulnerability will grow.
- Fourth, we must undertake a new cost-benefit analysis of nuclear energy, factoring in the costs of disaster preparedness and prevention as well as clean-up when things go wrong.
- Fifth and finally, we need to build a stronger connection between nuclear safety and nuclear security. At a time when terrorists seek nuclear materials, we can say with confidence that a nuclear plant that is safer for its community is also more secure for the world.
My visit to Chernobyl was not the first time I have travelled to a nuclear site. A year ago, I went to Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan, ground zero for nuclear testing in the former Soviet Union. Last summer in Japan, I met with the Hibakusha, survivors of the atomic blasts at Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
I went to these places to highlight the importance of disarmament. For decades, negotiators have sought agreement on limiting (and perhaps ultimately eliminating) nuclear weapons. And this past year, we have seen very encouraging progress.
With the memory of Chernobyl and, now, the disaster in Fukushima, we must widen our lens. Henceforth, we must treat the issue of nuclear safety as seriously as we do nuclear weapons.
The world has witnessed an unnerving history of near-accidents. It is time to face facts squarely. We owe it to our citizens to practice the highest standards of emergency preparedness and response, from the design of new facilities through construction and operation to their eventual decommissioning.
Issues of nuclear power and safety are no longer purely matters of national policy, alone. They are a matter of global public interest. We need international standards for construction, agreed guarantees of public safety, full transparency and information-sharing among nations.
Let us make that the enduring legacy of Chernobyl. Amid the silence there, I saw signs of life returning. A new protective shield is being erected over the damaged reactor. People are beginning to return. Let us resolve to dispel the last cloud of Chernobyl and offer a better future for people who have lived for too long under its shadow.
(Courtesy: UN Information Centre, New Delhi. Ban Ki-moon is the Secretary-General of the United Nations.)
Twenty-five years after Chernobyl (The Hindu- 26 april 2011)
Vladimir Radyuhin
AP In this May 1986 file photo, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the site of the world's worst nuclear accident, is seen in Chernobyl, Ukraine. Twenty-five years ago, the plant exploded, affecting about 3.3 million Ukrainians, including 1.5 million children. Photo: AP
Thanks to the global nuclear lobby's conspiracy, we still do not know the full truth about Chernobyl. We may never know the truth about Fukushima either.
On April 26, 1986, a reactor at Chernobyl exploded, setting off the world's worst nuclear catastrophe. It is tragically symbolic that exactly 25 years later, another nuclear disaster struck Japan. It is doubly tragic that the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant may eclipse what happened at Chernobyl. Critics say we may never know the truth about Fukushima, as we still do not know the full truth about Chernobyl, thanks to the global nuclear lobby's conspiracy.
The death toll from the Chernobyl explosion remains a hotly debated issue even today. International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Yukiya Amano told an international Chernobyl conference in Kiev, Ukraine, last week that “around 50 people engaged in the immediate emergency and recovery operations” had died.
Many experts find this figure grossly understated. Greenpeace has predicted that Chernobyl may ultimately cause some 2,70,000 cancer cases, more than 90,000 of which could prove fatal. In a book published in 2007, Russian biologist Alexei Yablokov and two Ukrainian researchers concluded that some 9,85,000 people had already died, mainly of cancer, till 2004. The book, called Chernobyl in Russian, was brought out in English two years later by the New York Academy of Sciences under the title Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment. Dr. Yablokov, former environmental advisor to the Russian President, has since updated his estimate of Chernobyl-related deaths, including stillbirths, to 1.6 million.
Such estimates are fiercely contested by IAEA experts. The official view of the U.N. watchdog is that the expected death toll among those affected by high radiation doses at Chernobyl may reach 4,000 in the coming decades. Compare this with the official data from Ukraine's Health Ministry: 530,000 died from radiation in the former Soviet state between 1987 and 2004.
Glaring discrepancies in casualty figures are mainly due to the refusal by the IAEA and the World Health Organisation to link increased disease incidence in affected territories to radiation, and to recognise the cancer risks and genetic impact of low radiation doses. Dr. Yablokov says his casualty estimates were based on over 5,000 scientific papers and radiological surveys, whereas the IAEA and the WHO used only 350 sources for their conclusions. While the IAEA claims that the ecological situation around Chernobyl is improving, independent researchers say it is, in fact, getting worse.
“Today, heavy transuranium elements — strontium-90, cesium-137 and plutonium — have started spreading from Chernobyl across Ukraine with underground water. Plutonium has been detected in water wells in Kiev and the Dnieper River,” says nuclear physicist Anatony Demsky, who worked at Chernobyl for seven years adding “60 km away from Chernobyl beta radiation is 1,000 times above normal levels.” Experts have long pointed to an inherent conflict of interest in the IAEA's twin role as promoter and regulator of nuclear technologies and material. “The IAEA's main statutory goal is to promote ‘peaceful atoms',” Dr. Yablokov says. “Its link with the nuclear industry makes all the IAEA assessments biased.”
The conflict of interest was at its most outrageous in the famous remark by Hans Blix, Director of the IAEA at the time of the Chernobyl disaster: “The atomic industry can take catastrophes like Chernobyl every year.”
This thinking is typical of the international nuclear lobby. Top nuclear officials in Russia, for example, systematically minimise the impact of the Chernobyl disaster. During a recent panel discussion on Russian TV, Rafael Arutyunyan, First Deputy Director of the Russian Institute for Safe Development of Nuclear Power Industry, said Chernobyl was “a serious accident,” which became a “catastrophe” only when the Soviet Union adopted a law that promised social protection to all people living in radiation affected territories.
Many researchers in Russia and other countries claim that the nuclear lobby has been deliberately suppressing the truth about radiation risks. Soon after its establishment in 1957, the IAEA signed agreements with the WHO, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and other U.N. agencies, which imposed constraints on independent studies of radiation and health. The IAEA/WHO agreement, for example, required that “whenever either organisation proposes to initiate a programme or activity on a subject in which the other organisation has or may have a substantial interest, the first party shall consult the other with a view to adjusting the matter by mutual agreement.” This gave the IAEA effective veto power on dissenting voices, critics say.
The agreements “played an extremely negative role for the study of radiation effects in Chernobyl,” says radiobiologist Natalia Mansurova. “Some information was withheld and selective methods were applied to exclude large numbers of radiation-affected people from being monitored for medium and long-term effects.”
Dr. Mansurova calls the IAEA casualty figures for Chernobyl “plain lies.” The researcher knows what she is talking about. She spent four-and-a-half years at Chernobyl studying the fallout and is the only surviving member of her team of 14 radiobiologists assigned to work there. Dr. Yablokov estimates that out of more than 800,000 “liquidators” who helped clean up Chernobyl, 125,000 died later. It is because of the collusive agreement between the IAEA and the WHO that the lessons of Chernobyl have not been learnt. “A total of 350 incidents of radiation leakage happened in the world before Chernobyl but no lessons were learnt,” Dr. Mansurova said in an interview. “No model procedures were devised for dealing with the Fukushima-type disasters. They did not know what to do with the stricken Fukushima reactors, whether to pour water, sand or concrete.”
The former deputy director of the Chernobyl nuclear plant, Alexander Kovalenko, also thinks that the unlearnt lessons of Chernobyl played an evil role in Fukushima. “The Japanese authorities and nuclear plant personnel ignored the information and technological lessons of Chernobyl,” the expert said. “They were too slow in dealing with the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami and let a medium-level accident escalate into a full-scale catastrophe.”
Even members of the Russian nuclear establishment admit that the Japanese authorities are manipulating information about the Fukushima fallout. “The situation with information about Fukushima is similar to what happened at Chernobyl,” says Russia's former Nuclear Energy Minister Yevgeny Adamov. “During the first 24 hours after the Chernobyl blast, reports coming from the plant management said radiation levels were normal and efforts were on to cool the reactor, even though it already lay in ruins.”
While Mr. Adamov thinks the Japanese authorities are justified in withholding “alarmist” information, critics, however, say they are exposing people to mortal risks. “We are seeing a repetition of Chernobyl: the dangers of radiation are being understated and this may lead to hundreds of thousands of people falling ill,” says Dr. Yablokov.
Even after the Fukushima accident was awarded the top level 7 nuclear disaster rating, the same as Chernobyl, the IAEA continued to claim that the Japanese accident was no match for the Soviet reactor disaster.
However, Russian experts believe that Fukushima may eventually dwarf Chernobyl. “What happened at Chernobyl was essentially an atomic explosion that spewed radioactive fumes across Europe for 10 days,” says the respected Russian biologist Zhores Medvedev, famous for exposing the 1957 nuclear disaster at the Mayak fuel storage in the Urals. “At the same time, the Chernobyl accident involved one reactor, whereas at Fukushima they have three stricken reactors plus four storages of spent fuel, which is even more dangerous because it contains long-living elements — cesium, strontium and plutonium. Together they hold 25 times more radioactivity than Chernobyl and it has been leaking into the atmosphere, the ground and the sea for more than a month now and will keep on seeping for a very long time.”
Speaking at the Kiev conference, the IAEA chief promised to improve international safety standards in the nuclear power industry and ensure “full transparency about the risks of radiation”. Critics, however, urged changes in the way the IAEA itself operates.
“The IAEA's agreements with the WHO and other U.N. agencies must be annulled, so that we can honestly and objectively analyse the damage from radiation to man and environment, not only in the short-term period but also in the medium and long-term perspective,” says Natalia Mironova, thermodynamic engineer and anti-nuclear campaigner.
Experts are also calling for reforming the U.N. watchdog. “The IAEA status must be changed,” says Yuli Andreyev, former engineer at Chernobyl who later worked as deputy head of the Soviet Spetsatom nuclear clear-up energy. “This organisation consists only of people from the civilian and military nuclear industry. It is the unofficial headquarters of the global nuclear elite.”
मंगलवार, 18 जनवरी 2011
Gutter goes green: MCD plans using sewage to water parks (Times of India-Jan 16, 2011)
Risha Chitlangia
The MCD has come up with a unique way to meet the growing water requirement to maintain its parks in south Delhi. After the civic agency started focusing on building a green capital, parks are getting special attention. But the depleting ground water level is not helping matters. So now, the MCD is planning to use sewer water to maintain parks. To achieve this, MCD is taking the help of National Environment Engineering Research Institute (NEERI), a government organization , in setting up a natural plant-based sewer water purifying unit in Chirag Dilli. Under this technology, also known as phytorid, sewer water is purified using special types of plants and stones.
NEERI, which is a part of the Council for Scientific and Industrial research ( CSIR), has submitted the project report to MCD. The plant, MCD sources said, will be installed on Chirag Dilli nullah and the treated water will be used for maintenance of 22 acres of land, including Millenium Park which is spread over 11 acres in Chirag Dilli.
"There is an acute shortage of water in south Delhi. The ground water level is dismal. We have borewells, but most of them have dried up. Hence, we decided to try out this method of using purified sewer water for maintaining our parks,'' said an MCD official. MCD needs just two lakh litre of water per day which is less than 1% of the total output of Chirag Dilli nullah. The flow in the nullah is 80-90 million litres per day.
NEERI experts said to produce two litres of purified water, a small unit would suffice. The best part about this plant is that it doesn't require any machinery . Therefore, maintenance cost is almost zero. "We have to make a small tank of 100 metres in length and three metres in depth. We will then fill it up with stones, some of which are treated with micro-bacteria , and plant water hyacinths, American pondweed, common arrowhead etc. These plants can survive in waterlogged areas and its roots extract impurities from water. When the impure water comes in contact with the roots and stones, the carbon content is oxidized . When carbon dioxide is extracted from the impure water, the treated water doesn't have foul smell,'' explained Dr Rakesh Kumar, head, NEERI (Mumbai).
It takes 24 hours to purify impure water and make it ready for use. The sewer water is released at one end of the 100-metre tank and in 24 hours it slowly moves towards the other end and by then the impurities is completely treated. NEERI has installed the plant in several places like Mumbai , Pune, Nagpur, Nashik etc.
A senior MCD official said: "It will cost MCD close to Rs 1 crore to set up the unit, but it will solve our water problems forever. We might expand this project and treat the entire nullah in the long run. The project should be approved soon. Usually sewer water is not preferred as the foul smell remains in the water. But this project solves that problem.''
WASTEWATER MANAGEMENT
Also called phytorid treatment, is used to rid impure water from various sources of its toxicity It has already been used in Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur, Nashik
The MCD has come up with a unique way to meet the growing water requirement to maintain its parks in south Delhi. After the civic agency started focusing on building a green capital, parks are getting special attention. But the depleting ground water level is not helping matters. So now, the MCD is planning to use sewer water to maintain parks. To achieve this, MCD is taking the help of National Environment Engineering Research Institute (NEERI), a government organization , in setting up a natural plant-based sewer water purifying unit in Chirag Dilli. Under this technology, also known as phytorid, sewer water is purified using special types of plants and stones.
NEERI, which is a part of the Council for Scientific and Industrial research ( CSIR), has submitted the project report to MCD. The plant, MCD sources said, will be installed on Chirag Dilli nullah and the treated water will be used for maintenance of 22 acres of land, including Millenium Park which is spread over 11 acres in Chirag Dilli.
"There is an acute shortage of water in south Delhi. The ground water level is dismal. We have borewells, but most of them have dried up. Hence, we decided to try out this method of using purified sewer water for maintaining our parks,'' said an MCD official. MCD needs just two lakh litre of water per day which is less than 1% of the total output of Chirag Dilli nullah. The flow in the nullah is 80-90 million litres per day.
NEERI experts said to produce two litres of purified water, a small unit would suffice. The best part about this plant is that it doesn't require any machinery . Therefore, maintenance cost is almost zero. "We have to make a small tank of 100 metres in length and three metres in depth. We will then fill it up with stones, some of which are treated with micro-bacteria , and plant water hyacinths, American pondweed, common arrowhead etc. These plants can survive in waterlogged areas and its roots extract impurities from water. When the impure water comes in contact with the roots and stones, the carbon content is oxidized . When carbon dioxide is extracted from the impure water, the treated water doesn't have foul smell,'' explained Dr Rakesh Kumar, head, NEERI (Mumbai).
It takes 24 hours to purify impure water and make it ready for use. The sewer water is released at one end of the 100-metre tank and in 24 hours it slowly moves towards the other end and by then the impurities is completely treated. NEERI has installed the plant in several places like Mumbai , Pune, Nagpur, Nashik etc.
A senior MCD official said: "It will cost MCD close to Rs 1 crore to set up the unit, but it will solve our water problems forever. We might expand this project and treat the entire nullah in the long run. The project should be approved soon. Usually sewer water is not preferred as the foul smell remains in the water. But this project solves that problem.''
WASTEWATER MANAGEMENT
Also called phytorid treatment, is used to rid impure water from various sources of its toxicity It has already been used in Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur, Nashik
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