Nuclear leak rumors scare eastern Turkey

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

VERCİHAN ZİFLİOĞLU

ISTANBUL – Hürriyet Daily News

 Armenian authorities rejected claims Tuesday that a nuclear plant near the town of Metszamor was leaking radiation, denying an Anatolian news agency report from the previous day that radioactive fallout from the station was affecting nearby eastern Turkey.

“Turkey does not need to worry. If there were a danger, we would have measures first for our own people,” Ashot Mardirosyan, chairman of the State Nuclear Regulatory Security Committee, told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review on Tuesday. The Armenian Foreign Ministry also rejected the claims of a leak Monday on its website.

The news agency erroneously reported Monday that special devices placed in several eastern Turkish provinces were measuring radiation leakage from the Haygagan Atomagayan nuclear power plant – sparking brief panic before concerns were allayed by authorities.

With the wire report spreading quickly, the Turkish Atomic Energy Authority, or TAEK, compounded the worry when it later said it had placed detectors in 100 spots. TAEK released a statement at 5 p.m. Monday noting that there was no increase in the radiation’s dosage speed, but did not clarify that there was no leak.

After news of the supposed leakage was broadcast, Erzurum’s Atatürk University scrambled to say the special devices in eastern Turkey were designed to measure cancer-causing radon gas resulting from the cracks and paint on buildings in eastern Turkey and to provide data for an earthquake map.

Afterward, the Iğdır Governor’s Office released a statement saying “only radon measurements were done” and not radiation measurements on nuclear fears. Anatolia later changed the phrase it had used in its coverage from “leak” to “a leak claim.”

“It should not be suggested that we have worries about Haygagan Atomagayan. We are investing for the future as we think about our country’s energy need. I am sure these steps will disturb some circles too as Armenia gets stronger and sustains itself despite its closed borders,” Arthur Hovhannesian, deputy head of the Armenia’s State Nuclear Regulatory Security, told the Daily News in regard to a new nuclear power plant under joint construction with Russia.

Gyumri earthquake and the plant

Anatolia’s original story also reported that the Haygagan Atomagayan power plant, which was constructed in the 1970s and came online in 1980, was erected in the eastern Anatolian fault zone, thus posing a danger.

However, Mardirosyan said, the devastating 1988 Spitag Earthquake that killed thousands of people when it hit Armenia’s second largest city, Gyumri, proved that the plant was sound. “It was constructed with necessary precautions. It was not harmed in the Spitag quake and it clearly proved that the plant is extremely safe.”

Hovhannesiyan also said similar media stories questioning the plant’s safety frequently crop up in the press.

“Unfortunately, Turkey’s policy on the power plant is very bad. We haven’t been able to understand why,” he said.