Nuclear cover-up: environment ministry slaps penalties on errant crew over failures at Guangdong plant

Four staff members at a nuclear power plant in Guangdong have been punished for breaching ­operational guidelines and trying to cover up the failures, the Ministry of Environmental Protection said this week, more than a year after the incident took place.

Three staff at the Yangjiang nuclear power plant in Guangdong, about 220km north of Hong Kong, were given administrative warnings, while the crew’s leader, Wei Haifeng, was stripped of his senior nuclear operator’s licence, a severe punishment.

Their actions caused a heat ­removal pump on one of the key reactors to stop functioning for six minutes at the plant, the first to go online in China after the 2011 ­Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan. The operators then tried to cover up the incident by failing to log it as required, the ministry said.

The incident did not result in a radioactive leak or pose a direct public safety threat, two nuclear experts said.

According to the ministry, the breaches occurred on March 22, 2015 when the reactor was undergoing maintenance. The pump is a crucial part of the reactor’s water cooling system.

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The plant’s developer, China General National Power Corp, told the South China Morning Post the incident did not affect plant safety because it occurred during maintenance. It also said it did “thorough analysis and a deep ­review” after the incident and initiated a “safety culture re-education” campaign among all staff.