An unfortunate accident has killed three workers at a nuclear power plant in Ulsan that was about to go online:
The labor ministry has ordered two nuclear reactors under construction to be shut down to look into the cause of a toxic gas leak that killed three workers, a local branch said Saturday.
Three workers died Friday apparently after inhaling toxic gas at the construction site of a nuclear reactor in Ulsan, about 410 kilometers southeast of Seoul.
The state-run Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power Co. earlier said it suspected nitrogen gas leaked from an underground cable caused the deaths.
The ministry said it will cooperate with the occupational safety agency, the emergency management agency and police to conduct a joint probe into the site and summon officials at the state nuclear power company and contractors.
“We will promptly conduct an investigation and hold accountable those who are responsible (in the incident) if any irregularities are discovered,” Yoo Han-bong, who leads the labor ministry’s Ulsan branch, said.
The New Gori No. 3 reactor with a rated capacity of 1,400 megawatts was 99 percent complete for full operation scheduled for next June, and was undergoing a test run since last month to receive approval from the state nuclear watchdog. The New Gori No. 4 reactor was 98 percent complete, with commercial operation slated for 2016. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but it will be interesting to see if the investigation shows any sloppy safety practices led to this tragedy. Also of interest in the article is that Korea’s nuclear power plants have also been facing cyber attacks and of course the IP address for the attacks was coming out of China. North Korea is the suspected culprit, but the fact that China continues to allow them use IP addresses in their country shows how they are complicit in letting them conduct these cyberattacks.
