nuclear-news

Inconclusive findings on attempted sabotage of Belgian nuclear reactor.

The seven-year-long investigation into an attempted sabotage of the Doel
nuclear power plant in 2014 has ended inconclusively.

The incident took place on 5 August 2014, when the reactor at the Doel 4 installation shut
down automatically. Inspections revealed a disturbance in the steam turbine
in a non-nuclear part of the complex. It soon became clear that the problem
was an act of sabotage: someone had manually opened a valve in the plant
evacuation system, intended to quickly evacuate the 65,000 litres of oil
used to lubricate the turbine to an emergency reservoir in the case of
fire.

No order had been given to open the valve, and operators Electrabel
filed a criminal complaint for sabotage with the prosecutor’s office in
Dendermonde in East Flanders. But when the possibility of a terrorist
motive was raised, the investigation moved to the federal prosecutor’s
office, where all terrorist cases are handled.

One of the first discoveries made by investigators was the dubious status of the plant’s own security
measures. There were no CCTV cameras in strategic places – like the
vicinity of the blue valve that set off the alarm – to check who had
opened it.

 Brussels Times 13th Aug 2021

August 16, 2021 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | EUROPE, safety