Dear Sefians: The news below appearing in Hindustantimes should be of

interest to strucutral engineers. I wonder what has happened to the dams in the

region. Mostly the downstream people would have borne the brunt.

RNI

----



Pakistan's nuke facilities suffered damage by recent quake



Press Trust of India



New Delhi, November 20, 2005|21:27 IST



Pakistani nuclear facilities and storage sites in the Northern Areas have

suffered "15 to 20 per cent damage" in the recent mega quake and the local

populace faces the risk of contamination, a report said.



Claiming that these sites and facilities had suffered serious damage, the

European website Newsinsight reported that "the local population faces the

risk of contamination, but a curfew has been imposed and they are being

actively prevented by the authorities to leave the area".



"There is 15 to 20 per cent damage to Pakistani nuclear facilities and

storage sites in the Northern Areas, especially in Skardu and Chitral," it

said, adding, "While Western sources did not say that reactors had been

damaged in the October 8 earthquake, they confirmed that missile silos had

developed cracks and storage facilities had taken a hit".



Pakistan government turned away international relief teams "because of the

serious damage to the nuclear facilities in the Northern Areas".



The report said Pakistan had not allowed Indian Army relief work or IAF

supply drops besides withdrawing consent for Israeli assistance fearing

infiltration by Mossad agents "who would destroy the atomic

establishments".



"Since the epicentre is likely to be seismically active for another two

years, they expressed fear of further collapse of the nuclear

establishments," the website said.



"To prevent leak of this massive nuclear destruction, Pakistan bottled up

the local population by imposing curfew and did not permit international

inspection of the disaster-hit areas," it added.



----



Posted via Email