Kaiga N-plant leak: Suspect list narrowed down

New Delhi: With only two workers receiving the uppermost limit of radiation of three rem (röntgen equivalent, man) a year in an emergency, the Nuclear Power Corporation of India has confirmed that none of the sixty five workers has been hospitalised because of radiation leak at the Kaiga Atomic Power Station in Karnataka. Focus has shifted instead to identifying the source of what is now being considered to be an ''insider job.''

The source of the ''leak,'' according to reports, has been traced to vials kept in labs within the complex. These vials contain heavy water, used as a coolant in the nuclear plant, and are collected for lab tests. It is now being surmised that some vials of tritiated heavy water were diverted to ``spike'' a water cooler instead of being released into specified areas.

Tritium is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen, which is used for research, and in fusion reactors and neutron generators.

The tritiated heavy water was apparently pushed into the cooler through an outflow pipe as the machine itself is sealed. Authorities are working on the assumption that the act was carried out by a disgruntled nuclear scientist.

The water cooler is located outside the reactor area and was found contaminated by radioactivity on the night of 24 November.

``The staff who had access to vials and the various points in the chain where the vials could have been diverted are being examined,'' said MoS in PMO, Prithviraj Chavan.