A nuclear power plant, whose operation had been suspended for an inspection, experienced a temporary cutoff in the power supply, an accident which, if prolonged, could have caused a horrendous disaster. No less serious was that the accident had been covered up for more than a month.
The power failure at the Busan-based Gori-1 nuclear power plant happened at 8:34 p.m. on Feb. 9, reportedly because the procedure of safety checks on the power supply was not followed as directed by the manual.
During a check on the plant’s circuit breaker, an inspector accidentally cut off the power supply from the outside, which should have automatically started a diesel-powered generator immediately. But it did not because the generator was out of order.
In that case, the inspector should have manually started an ACC DG, another emergency generator. But he did not. Instead, he spent 12 minutes restoring the power supply from the outside. If the first blackout the nation experienced had been prolonged, it could have caused a nuclear meltdown, a nightmare Japan experienced when a tsunami hit the Fukushima nuclear power plant a year ago.
Continue reading at [Editorial] Nuclear cover-up
◇ Article in Japanese:
・全電源喪失、１カ月隠す 韓国・釜山 古里原発 via 東京新聞
