This post will be a little different from the other posts so far, but is still related to the topic of human and physical geography. Instead of the usual topic of Madagascar, this post will be more about India and whether if the nuclear power plants in that country is safe from the risk of earthquakes or not.

The screenshot above is a GIS map of India, with the purple circles showing where there are earthquakes in the past month, yellow and orange lines to represent the tectonic plates, and the red dots as the nuclear power plants in India. As shown in the map, the nuclear power plants in India seem to be in a safe distance away from the earthquakes to cause any problems… right? No. Even though the earthquakes seems to be far away in some other country, it can still cause problems and disasters for the nuclear power plants. If the magnitude of an earthquake is strong enough, it can cause trouble even at far distances, creating secondary disasters such as tsunamis, landslides, etc. An example for that is the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi disaster that happened in Japan. A huge earthquake with a magnitude of 9.0 in the Pacific Ocean created a huge tsunami that hit Japan’s nuclear power plants which caused the meltdown.

This didn’t just happen in Japan, this kind of disaster also happened in India before. In 2004, an earthquake with a magnitude of 9.0 happened near the coast of Sumatra, an island in Indonesia, created a tsunami that hit the southeast coast of India and Sri Lanka, and killed hundreds and thousands of people, a horrible disaster. Apparently, two of India’s nuclear power plants are in that current location where hundreds and thousands of people died because of a huge tsunami created by an earthquake, so those two power plants are not safe. All the other power plants at the coast of India are also in danger of the threat of tsunamis created by earthquakes, so those power plants are also in danger. Even the power plants inland, earthquakes can also cause other disasters, not just tsunamis, so those power plants are not safe. An earthquake could happen and cause a landslide and crush a power plant.

In conclusion, the nuclear power plants in India are not safe due to being surrounded by the borders of tectonic plates where earthquakes are common and can cause secondary disasters that might hit the power plants even at far distances.