No abnormal death rate of atomic department staff: DAE

A total of 2,564 employees of India's atomic energy department have died in the last 19 years, which was not "abnormal", the department said Thursday.

The Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) Thursday said the number of deaths of its employees in service between 1995-2014 was 2,564 deaths, including 69 suicides.

Only 152 of these deaths were cancer-related, a proportion similar to what is seen in other sections of the society.

The average number of deaths of DAE employees while in service during 1995-2014 works out to about 130 per year, which is not abnormal as the total number of employees is around 60,000, it said.

The figures were part of a study conducted by the Tata Memorial Centre (TMC) covering 22,224 DAE workers and their families at three major Indian nuclear installations - Tarapur, Kaiga and Kakrapar - between 1981 and 2012.

It found that cancer accounted for nine percent of all deaths in this population group.