Don’t create paranoia for nuclear mishaps -II

Let’s take the recent nature’s fury in Uttarakhand as the case history. The hill state was gripped by the worst of the calamities of recent times. The reason, by and large, was attributed by the environmental scientists to mindless intervention in the ways of nature. Installation of hydro-electric projects without proper planning and often in gross violation of environmental laws resulted in the change of river courses in Uttarakhand. Badrinath and Kedarnath were the worst affected. These two destinations of pilgrimage faced the nature’s wrath and were completely ravaged by flash floods, heavy rains, cloud bursts and wide spread destruction due to recurrent landslides. All due to uncontrolled exhaustion of natural resources. Excessive melting of glaciers in the high reaches owing to unwarranted burning of fossil fuels, and release of green house gases resulted in a calamity of this magnitude.
The rest was more than obvious. A deadly trail of mass destruction and havoc left behind thousand dead and the ruined families to be reminded of the repercussions of tampering with nature all their life.
Despite a full-fledged   disaster management body existing, such mishaps can never be averted or avoided. But such is not the case with the nuke. There are certain laid norms and a number of watchdogs to monitor the nuke ops world over. All these measure have proved to be effective time and again. But the element of uncertainty should always be kept in mind while decrying or rejecting any technique or change. Fukushima and Chernobyl also fall in the same category. As far as India is concerned, the 44-year nuclear history is spotlessly clean without even a speck of taint of mishap or radiation leak. The country has got a foolproof security and safety system which is frequently refurbished with the changing trends and demands of time.