Tarapur nuclear plant to get early warning system for tsunamis and storms

Tarapur nuclear power plant in Maharashtra will soon be provided with an early warning system for natural marine disasters like storms, tsunamis, and floods. The system aims to ensure better preparedness and guarantee the safety of the nuclear facility. Recently the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) and the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to improve the safety of the Tarapur site, especially toward storms and tsunamis. Under the agreement, INCOIS will develop customised multi-hazard early warning services for the facility, assessing the risk of extreme events like tsunamis and storm surges. Tarapur is the first nuclear power plant that INCOIS will map for such natural disasters.
Over the next 12 to 18 months, ocean researchers will gather data on storms, rainfall, cyclones, and earthquakes from the two subduction zones and study the site in detail to provide a high-resolution model that can elaborate scenarios and predict possible marine disasters. T M Balakrishnan Nair, Director of INCOIS, said that extreme value and return period analyses would be carried out, deriving the hazard curves and waving run-up calculations as part of the risk assessment. As part of the project, ocean observation systems will be installed at Tarapur to help refine the hazard warnings for the nuclear power plant. Owned by NPCIL, the Tarapur plant has two pressurised heavy water reactors operational since 2005 and 2006, and two boiling water reactors functioning since 1969. Like other nuclear power plants, it has been built on the coast because reactors need large volumes of water for cooling purposes. However, coastal sites are vulnerable to storms, cyclones, and tsunamis caused by undersea earthquakes. The Fukushima nuclear accident posed the issue to the front and Indian coasts along the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal are prone to extreme events like those experienced by Japan in 2011. Over the past years, Indian authorities have been working to strengthen the economy of coastal regions, launching several energy and infrastructural projects. This makes the advisory systems devised by INCOIS crucial for public and economic safety, and the centre is already working on several of them for fishing and other sectors. According to Nair, there are also steps to train personnel in these industries to deal directly with natural emergencies.