Courtesy: The Globe and Mall TORONTO: Canadian and Indian officials have met secretly to resolve potentially dangerous problems with aging Candu nuclear reactors in India, CTV News reports, Officials of Atomic Energy of Canada Lid., which makes the reactors, met their Indian counterparts in Bombay, and Delhi last week despite a 20yearold Canadian ban on nuclear assistance to India, CTV said.
The two Candu reactors in northern India are shut down. But AECL is worried that if they are put back into operation without Canadian expertise, an accident is more likely to happen, CTV reported.
Last year, AECL alerted the world’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, that “there is 3 real potential for a…pressure tube rupture to occur at any time” in the Indian reactors.
Citing unidentified Canadian and Indian diplomatic sources, CTV reported that AECL offered to provide technical assistance and spare parts for the reactors. The Indians insisting that Canada help replace the pressure tubes, rejected the offer. Future sales of Candu reactors were also discussed at the meeting, CTV said, in 1974, Ottawa severed all nuclear ties with India after it exploded a nuclear bomb made from plutonium that came from a Canadian made reactor.
Article extracted from this publication >> May 12, 1995
