Taiwan’s nuclear engineers and the Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said that an earthquake near Kinmen County was less concerning than the potential risk posed by earthquake-triggered tsunamis striking nuclear power plants along China’s coast.
A magnitude 5.0 quake on the Richter scale, the strongest recorded in the Kinmen region in 32 years, struck at 6:56am yesterday.
The CWA said its epicenter was in the Taiwan Strait, about 93.9km east of Kinmen County Hall, at a depth of 17.2km.
Nuclear engineer Ho Li-wei (賀立維) said that while nuclear power plants are designed to withstand strong earthquakes, their cooling systems are more vulnerable.
Ho cited the 2011 Fukushima Dai-ichi disaster, where the plant’s cooling system was damaged by a tsunami triggered by the Tohoku earthquake, ultimately leading to hydrogen explosions that destabilized the facility.
If the same happened to Chinese coastal nuclear power plants, irradiated water could seep into underground aquifers or be carried into the sea, posing a devastating threat to Taiwan’s fisheries, he said.
Kinmen and Lienchiang counties would face particular risk due to their proximity to China, he said.
On the issue of spent fuel pools, Ho said that used fuel rods are stored in pools to dissipate heat and radiation, often requiring years of cooling before they can be transferred to dry storage.
The number of spent fuel rods in pools far exceeds those in active reactors, making them a significant security risk, he said.
CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) said that the Kinmen earthquake was not on a fault line and carried little risk of causing a major quake.
Tsunami-generating earthquakes must reach at least magnitude 7 on the Richter scale and occur at depths of less than 30km, Wu said, adding that the likelihood of such conditions arising in the Taiwan Strait is not high.
While the Strait’s shallow waters make it theoretically vulnerable to tsunamis, Wu said that even waves generated by distant quakes would be greatly diminished by the time they reached the area.
Additional reporting by CNA
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