How to communicate in a crisis

Nuclear projects carry an element of risk from both equipment and human failure

It is more than a year since the nuclear incident at the Kakrapar Atomic Power Station (KAPS) in Gujarat, and even now the plant is in the safe shutdown state. At 9 am on March 11, 2016, Unit I of KAPS underwent an emergency automatic shutdown, following a heavy water leak in the primary heat transport system. The Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) reported that the reactors’ safety systems, including the backup cooling systems, worked as intended. The incident is provisionally rated at level-1 in the IAEA International Nuclear and Radiological Event scale, corresponding to an anomaly in the plant.