Fears of nuclear terror attack grow amid call for UK homes to be sent anti-radiation pills
NUCLEAR safety experts are calling for households in the UK to be supplied with anti-radiation pills as fears grow of the potential for terrorists to strike highly-sensitive sites around the country.
Analysis for the Nuclear-Free Local Authorities
(NFLA) found nuclear facilities at Faslane – where the UK stations its
Trident missile system – was vulnerable to attack.
Sensitive nuclear sites at Hunterston, Torness and Dounreay are also at risk, the study claims.
More worrying still, UK authorities were deemed to be underestimating the risk of devastating terrorist attacks.
Such is the fear of an attack that the NFLA is
demanding anti-radiation pills be distributed to households in Glasgow,
Edinburgh and surrounding areas.
The medication is a preventative measure which
would help protect people from a radiation leak – either accidental or a
deliberate attack.
The report on nuclear security, compiled by Dr
David Lowry, a senior research fellow with the US Institute for Resource
and Security Studies, argues that nuclear materials transported by
road, rail, sea and air are also potential targets.
He said: “The main consequences would be, whatever the level of attack, mass public panic and sensationalist media reportage.
“We would inevitably see total road gridlock, as everyone tries to flee by car en masse at once.”
Drones could carry shaped charges, poison gas, booby traps or decoys, and could come individually or in large groups.
The report said: “One heavily laden small drone could probably travel at least 20mph with a load of 5-10kg.
“Just one 5kg shaped charge can penetrate 0.75 metres of reinforced concrete, or 0.25 meters of steel.”
The second report for NFLA, written by Dr Ian
Fairlie, an independent radiation scientist, focuses on the stable
iodine tablets that can prevent radiation poisoning after some nuclear
accidents.
Several other European countries distribute the
pills across a wide area, but in Scotland they are only given to
residents who live within two or three kilometres of nuclear plants.
A Scottish government spokesman said iodine tablets
had been distributed to households in designated emergency planning
zones around nuclear stations.
There were also stockpiles of iodine tablets in
Scotland “which can be distributed to the site of an incident to treat
the affected population as required”.
A spokeswoman for the UK Office for Nuclear
Regulation (ONR) said: “Duty holders within the UK civil nuclear
industry are required by ONR to demonstrate that they have the
resilience against a range of external threat scenarios.
“These scenarios are updated regularly considering developments in technology and other areas.
“The distance to which tablets are distributed around a nuclear power station is considered on a case-by-case basis.”
EDF Energy, the French company that runs nuclear
power stations in Scotland, and the Ministry of Defence, which runs the
Faslane nuclear base, declined to comment.