Picture this. It is August 2022 and the 9,900 MW Jaitapur nuclear power station in Maharashtra's Ratnagiri district is fully functional. An earthquake measuring 8 on the Richter scale hits the coast, rupturing reactor pipes. Radiation starts seeping into the atmosphere. There is widespread panic. The radiation rides on the south-western monsoon winds and travels 250 km north towards Mumbai. It is a national catastrophe.

In 2001, such a scenario would have been equally incredible in Japan. In February 2011, with the threat of a nuclear meltdown hovering over Japan's shattered Fukushima nuclear plant, proposed nuclear plants like Jaitapur are now at the epicentre of the nuclear debate. The debate is around two basic questions: are nuclear plants accident -proof and whether this form of energy is worth the enormous risk.

Fukushima, is now the world's third major nuclear accident after Chernobyl in Ukraine in 1986 and Three Mile Island in 1979. It has prompted a global rethink on nuclear energy. Germany plans to close down seven of its pre-1980 nuclear energy plants and China has suspended approval for new nuclear projects pending the introduction of new safety rules. Russia is silent while France and America keep the nuclear lobby alive.

The Hungry Tide A baby being scanned for radiation exposure in Koriyama, northern Japan. Over 20,000 people have already been rescued from Fukushima, with radiation 20 times the normal reading of the area. The impact is global. Chinese authorities have ordered a detailed check of imports-food, people and cargo. France has issued a travel advisory. Japan's economy has suffered a body blow.

India today boasts the world's oldest operating Boiling Water Reactors (BWRS) at Tarapur. General Electric which built Tarapur also supplied the bwrs that are at the heart of the Fukushima crisis. Experts forecast immiment pressure on India for shutting down the 1969-vintage Tarapur.

The government has closed ranks to protect the nuclear industry. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced a safety review of all nuclear projects even as members of the atomic energy establishment emphasised the safety of Indian reactors.

"Indian nuclear reactors are capable of handling the worst natural disasters, such as the one in Japan," says Srikumar Banerjee, chairman of the Atomic energy Commission (AEC). "We have a system where all the safety measures are reviewed every five years. All the recommendations from the safety audit are followed strictly."

The facts do not encourage such optimism. On the contrary, there have been scores of minor accidents over the past two decades which could easily build up into catastrophes. Heavy water leaks at the Kota nuclear plant, and at Tarapur in 1992. A heavy water leak in Kalpakkam in 1999. Radiation contamination at the Kaiga atomic power plant in 2009.

The impact of tsunamis on nuclear plants may not have been on considered. "I don't recall if tsunamis were factored into the environment clearance process (of Jaitapur nuclear plant). But the safety issue has been left to the AERB (Atomic Energy Regulatory Board) and Nuclear Energy Council," environment minister Jairam Ramesh said on Wednesday.

There is no clear understanding of the impact of seismic activity on nuclear power plants. Two recent natural disasters, the 2001 Bhuj earthquake measuring 6.9 on the Richter scale and the 2004 Tsunami which hit Tamil Nadu, occurred in the vicinity of nuclear plants. In both cases, Gujarat's Kakrapar atomic plant and the Kalpakkam nuclear reactor in Tamil Nadu shut down safely. Indian nuclear experts say these safe shutdowns are proof that the nuclear plants are safe. "At Kalpakkam, our generators that supply the water for cooling were located 25 feet high and hence were untouched by the seawater that came into the plant," says P.K. Iyengar, former chairman of the AEC.

Living in Exile Survivors wait with just the clothes on their back and borrowed blankets at a gymnasium in the outskirts of Otsuchi town. In Sendai, a city of a million people, a 34-year-old truck driver, Koichi Takairin, survived because he decided to stay inside his four-tonne truck when the 30-foot tsunami waves lashed towards him. "Smaller cars were being swept around me. All I could do was sit in my truck," he said, dismounting from his life-saving shield. Emergency workers have rescued 15,000 people and relocated more than 5 lakh to 2,600 shelters across six prefectures.

However, nobody will guarantee that an Indian nuclear plant can survive a catastrophic one-two punch of an earthquake measuring 9 on the Richter scale and a tsunami with 23-foot high waves which innudated Fukushima's coolant pumps. "Engineers and scientists cannot predict all possibilities," Iyengar admits.

Nuclear energy constitutes just 3 per cent of India's power generation. The government would like this share to go up to nearly 25 per cent by 2050. That was an ostensible reason for pushing the Indo-US nuclear deal.

Over the next few decades, India proposes to spend an estimated $175 billion importing new generation nuclear power plants from the United States, France and Russia. "Today's needs can be met by fossil fuels, wind and solar energy but for the future, nuclear and solar energy are the only two options," says Anil Kakodkar, former aec chairman.

Here's the problem. Experts warn of the headlong plunge into buying new nuclear reactors without site studies or using unproven reactor designs. Former aerb Chairman Dr A. Gopalakrishnan says he is worried by India's plans to buy 21 foreign nuclear power reactors many of them untested designs like Areva's epr (Europe Pressurised Reactor) in Jaitapur.

India is importing four differnt types of light water reactor technologies which will make it's nuclear programme the most diverse in the world. "Our engineers will take time to grasp unfamiliar technologies, a dangerous situation in an accident where quick reaction is vital," says Gopalakrishnan. There are 19 reactors in operation in the country. Four more reactors are to be completed by 2013. Work will commence on six nuclear plants in Tirunelveli, Tamilnadu, Ratnagiri, Maharashtra, Srikakulam, Andhra Pradesh, Bhavnagar, Gujarat, Fatehabad, Haryana and Mandla, Madhya Pradesh.

"The Fukushima explosions in reactor buildings and fires at spent-fuel ponds actually highlight two other dangers in India: the decision to build six or more reactors in close proximity to each park, and the discharged fuel accumulating at Tarapur for four decades, with the US refusing to take it back or allow India to reprocess it," says strategic expert Brahma Chellaney. At least four of these major power projects are being built along the coast, since they use seawater as a coolant. However, at least 241 of the 612 coastal districts in India are prone to multi-hazard risks like floods, cyclones, earthquakes and landslides. Activists say Jaitapur sits on a zone of high seismicity. In 2008, an earthquake measuring 5 on the Richter scale rattled windows 25 km south of the site. "The intensity of a seismic zone either remains the same or keeps increasing. Even if the plants are designed to sustain a large scale earthquake, there is always a possibility of radioactive leakage from reactor joints," says Pradeep Indulkar, former scientific officer at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC).

Vivek Monterio, the director of Mumbai-based Indian Institute of Science, says that the design of the EPR to be used in Jaitapur plant is untested and faulty. "If the design is not improved, the cooling system of the reactor will not work properly. The failure of cooling system leads to the radiation," he says. A joint statement issued by the Atomic Regulatory Boards of US, UK, France and Finland in November 2009 also raised doubts about the reactor design. In an emailed response to India Today, a spokesperson said the safety of the EPR(TM) reactor has not been called into question and Areva is currently 'working with the regulators in each country to make the necessary adaptations to meet local standards'.

The tragedy in Japan is unlikely to halt the Indian nuclear industry in its tracks. The Rs 3-4 per kilowatt hour supplied by nuclear energy makes it far more attractive than solar-Rs 20 per kwh and reduces dependance on external energy sources. "An energy deficient country with a large population like ours has to look upon nuclear power as an option," says Professor M.R. Srinivasan, former Chairman of the AEC.

Thick black smoke rises from a factory zone in Sendai on March 12. Thick black smoke rises from a factory zone in Sendai on March 12.

Environ Minister Jairam Ramesh says India needs to be careful about nuclear energy but it does not mean the country needs to rewind its policy. What Japan's tragedy will do is prompt a rethink of the size of nuclear reactors. "We should not jump straightaway from 800 mw to 1,600 mw reactors. The bigger the reactors, the more the problems," warns Dr P.K. Iyengar.

Experts say there is an urgent need to make the aerb independent of the atomic energy establishment. "Nuclear safety in India is compromised by the lack of independence of the aerb," says Gopalakrishnan. Formed in 1983, the board is responsible for inspecting the nuclear reports to the AEC. Activists blame the secretive Indian nuclear establishment for the lack of debate on safety. "We know very little about our internal capacities to deal with crisis or the safety provisions of our existing infrastructure because the nuclear science establishment shies away from discussion. "We need a public debate on nuclear energy," says Sunita Narain, Director, Centre for Science and Environment. "Nuclear scientists believe you are with them or against them. Ask a question and you get a response that the answer is technical and you will not be able to understand it. Ask another question and you will be told that the country needs nuclear energy because it is power hungry. The assumption is that you cannot question because then you are against nuclear energy," she says.

There is a growing concern, even more after what has happened in Japan, that the nuclear establishment, already used to secret workings, is even more problematic when it combines with the private industry. "In Japan there is concern that not enough was shared by industry with people about the disaster. In India, we are moving towards a new regime of large industry involvement in the nuclear sector," says Narain.

Fukushima has also brought into question India's response to a nuclear accident if it does spill beyond the 5 km 'sterilised zone' around all nuclear plants. Critical gaps in India's response to nuclear and radiological emergencies continue despite an alarming government study pointing out these vulnerabilities.

A 'gap analysis' by the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) submitted to the home ministry in 2009 listed 12 critical vulnerabilities that could seriously impede India's response to a disaster in any of its seven nuclear power plants.

The catastrophe destroyed the town of Otsuchi. The catastrophe destroyed the town of Otsuchi.

The lacunae identified include the lack of doctors trained to handle radiation related injuries, lack of emergency shelters and camping facilities near nuclear plants, non-identification of alternate sources of food and water, inadequate involvement of home guards, police and civil defence volunteers as first responders and inadequate emergency response centres.

"The stock of monitoring equipment and personnel protection gear is very small and needs to be augmented to upgrade the capabilities to handle nuclear emergencies," the document noted. The analysis was part of the 'management of nuclear and radiological emergencies' prepared by the ndma. The report was prepared by 20 core group members drawn from the BARC, DAE, home ministry and defence ministry. It is India's only detailed open-source document analyzing responses to an emergency arising out of a nuclear accident, nuclear strike or an attack by a terrorist 'dirty bomb'. Over two years later, the report continues to gather dust.

Last year the leakage of Cobalt-60 from a disused gamma irradiator at a scrap market in west Delhi killed one person and injured five others. The first responders, the police, were clueless. Doctors were unable to identify the symptoms of the radiation exposure. It was a microcosm of India's tardy response to a radiological incident.

The only steps taken so far are the creation of ten National Disaster Response Force (ndrf) battalions numbering over 8,000 personnel. Trained by the barc, they operate under the ministry of home affairs. These battalions located in Delhi, Pune, Ernakulam and Kolkata have been equipped with the basic equipment to respond to a nuclear emergency. That isn't enough to cope with a serious nuclear accident, like in Japan.

- With Kiran Tare and Mihir Srivastava