Japan’s nuclear crisis has the potential of turning into a major disaster, with radioactivity spreading for thousands of kilometres if the sealed vessels housing the reactors break, according to a nuclear expert.

“If the reactors continue to heat up and the nuclear reactor vessels are breached because of melting or because of an explosion, then the situation might be disastrous,” Nicholas Sammut, chairman of the Malta Council for Science and Technology and a former research engineer at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research told The Times.

In the worst case scenario, he added, the radioactivity could spread for thousands of kilometres affecting people, livestock and food.

“It all depends on if and how the situation escalates but it is very difficult to predict the extent of the impact,” he said.

The situation remained tenuous yesterday as Japan struggled to contain a nuclear crisis sparked by a massive earthquake and tsunami that struck the north east of the island last week. Workers returned to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant after evacuating the facility when radiation levels soared after an explosion in the fourth reactor on Tuesday.

They are trying to avert a catastrophe in what is already a serious nuclear incident by cooling down the reactors to prevent them from melting down.

“If the reactors are successfully cooled and shut down, then the seriousness of the situation could be at worst comparable to the Three Mile Island accident of Pennsylvania United States in 1979,” Dr Sammut said, adding that for the time being the problem was localised.

The 1979 nuclear incident saw one of the reactors suffer a partial meltdown but the accident resulted in no deaths or injuries to plant workers or members of nearby communities. Even so about 140,000 people evacuated the area for fear of possible radiation.

Japanese authorities evacuated people within a 20 kilometre radius of the Fukushima Daiichi plant. Problems started when the earthquake caused cooling systems to fail and generators intended to run in an emergency were wiped out by the tsunami that followed.

Dr Sammut said nuclear plants have multiple safety features to avoid radiation from reaching the atmosphere and workers normally have a number of plans on tackling this sort of crisis. However, the Japanese plant was also hit by misfortune.

“Japanese authorities had designed back-up generators to withstand waves of 6.3 metres, which is below the seven metre wave that hit the plant. The hope is that the containment vessels built around the reactors withstand the heat and the reactor is cooled in time,” Dr Sammut said.

The accident has re-opened the debate on the safety of atomic energy after it gained widespread acceptance over recent years as the ideal solution to combat global warming by producing electricity without harmful emissions. Nuclear experts have long argued that more people die in coal mining accidents than in nuclear ones.

“A claim that a technology is safe doesn’t mean it has no risks,” Dr Sammut said, drawing parallels with the perceived danger associated with flying.

“The perception is that flying is much more dangerous than car travel but in actual fact it is hundreds of times more dangerous to travel by car. The same thing can be said about the choice of energy generation. The public perception may be that nuclear power is more dangerous than coal powered plants. However, coal power pollution causes several thousand deaths per year and tens of millions of respiratory cases,” he said.

Renewable energy was the safest option but were consumers ready to pay for it, he asked. It may be a pertinent question but Alternattiva Demokratika foreign affairs spokesman Arnold Cassola insisted that nuclear energy was cheap because the EU treaty regulating the industry (Euratom Treaty) allowed state subsidies to be funnelled into it, something not possible in the rest of the energy market.

“Nuclear energy is not safe and the events in Japan have shown that the spectre of nuclear accidents caused by natural disasters is possible,” Prof. Cassola said, expressing hope that the world would learn from this disaster and instead channel resources to renewable energy.

This is the same argument currently being made by green groups and the opposition in Italy where the electorate will be voting in a referendum on nuclear energy in June.

It may be a case of historical irony but for the second time in 25 years Italians will be deliberating the nuclear option under the shadow of a major crisis.

In the first referendum on the matter held in 1987 Italians overwhelmingly rejected atomic energy in the wake of the worst ever nuclear disaster, which occurred in the Ukrainian plant at Chernobyl.

The current government led by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has reignited the debate by proposing the construction of a number of nuclear facilities, including two on the island of Sicily.

This is a worrying development for Malta, according to Prof. Cassola, since Italy is situated in an earthquake-prone zone.

“The Maltese government should raise its concerns at an EU level about the possibility of having two nuclear energy plants on our doorstep in Sicily,” he said.

In the wake of the Japanese disaster Italian ministers have gone on record saying that plans to go nuclear had not been derailed although Prof. Cassola is confident the Italian electorate will give the thumbs down to the plans.

Malta ‘not at risk’

Malta is not at risk of radiation from Japan, according to the Health Ministry.

“From the information gathered till now, there is no risk of radiation in Europe, neither from direct sources nor indirect ones like food and other imports from Japan,” the ministry said in a statement yesterday.

The Public Health Regulation Department is monitoring developments in Japan after three nuclear reactors exploded in Fukushima. It again advised people to avoid travelling to Japan, especially Tokyo and the north of the country, “unless essential”.

The department said it would advise the public on any substantial changes that could affect health.

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