nuclear-news

A U.S. think tank, reviewing recent satellite images, said Monday that North Korea’s main Yongbyon nuclear site appeared to have suffered water supply problems due to heavy rain and floods last summer. An unstable supply could pose radiation risks, especially at North Korea’s first light water reactor, which is near completion, according to the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University. The regime does not have experience operating the light water reactor and “the rapid loss of water used to cool the reactor could result in a serious safety problem,” analyst Nick Hansen wrote on the institute’s blog, 38 North. North Korea has more experience with its restarted plutonium production reactor at Yongbyon but its “lack of airtight containment could lead to the escape of some radioactivity even in small accidents.” The published analysis comes after South Korean President Park Geun-Hye warned that Yongbyon could witness a Chernobyl-style disaster, one of a series of comments that enraged North Korea, whose official media accused her of speaking “nonsense gibberish.” The 38 North analysis downplayed the risks of a Chernobyl-scale disaster, saying Yongbyon was smaller than the Soviet-built station in Ukraine where a 1986 accident killed 30 people in an explosion and another 2,500 afterward in related illnesses. “However, a radioactive release into the atmosphere or river would cause an expanded local area of contamination,” the analysis said. “Also, Pyongyang’s likely lack of transparency could create a regional crisis, panicking the public in surrounding countries and raising tensions with governments anxious for further information.”….http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/04/07/u-s-think-tank-says-north-korea-is-having-radiation-issues-at-primary-nuclear-site/