Was a tsunami taken into consideration when the Kalpakkam nuclear power reactors were being built?
No, tsunami was not taken into consideration. Nowhere in India people had thought a tsunami could strike the Indian coasts. But we had taken into account the worst cyclonic storm surges. Before a cyclone hits, a storm surge comes. We had provided for the worst cyclone that could hit the coast looking at historical statistics. The maximum water level that could be expected if the cyclonecoincided with highest of high tides was estimated at 6 metres or so. The Kalpakkam plant site is built to withstand that. The construction of Kalpakkam began in about 1968 but it was completed in 1983 because around 1974 outside help was discontinued and we found that we will have to build the plant indigenously and that took some time. The first unit of Kalpakkam was commissioned in 1983 and the second was commissioned in 1984. Since then, it is functioning extremely well. The tsunami storm surge that we saw on that day was not much more than that, in fact it (intensity of tsunami storm surge) was less
