Safety of nuclear plants

In the wake of the Fukushima tragedy, revelations of faulty designs and cutting corners have emerged so whatever the truth may be this is a salutary reminder we ought to be a bit more intelligent as to whether building things which contain highly toxic and dangerous material is such a good idea when we cannot stop natural disasters from happening. Just two weeks after Japan's worst earthquake,the nuclear crisis was being amplified by the industry's murky past. Testimony from those involved in the design and regulation of the plant, as well as leaked documents, portrayed a company that cut costs and ignored warnings in the build-up to the disaster. If the downside of nuclear energy is deliberately ignored, if not actively suppressed, we should stop a minute to listen to the winner of the 1970 Nobel Prize for Physics, Professor Hannes Alfven, who said, specialists lack 'humane intelligence' and give priority rather to short-sighted advantage ---- at the expense of the security and health of humankind. According to him, except for 'very small scale use for medical purposes and as tracers, the purely scientific investigations of the structure of nuclei, etc.' no other nuclear activity is acceptable at all! In this context, building a nuclear power plant on the soil of one of the most populated countries in the world which is Bangladesh could endanger the lives of millions of people in this poor country where knowledge and literacy are at a minimum. The fact that no nuclear plant can be made 100 per cent fail-safe must be taken into consideration. Shaheed Akhand Toranto, Canada