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MARINE police have been secretly issued with thousands of iodine pills to treat New Territories residents in the event of a nuclear accident at Daya Bay.

  A confidential Hong Kong Government memo urges police to hand out the tablets immediately after receiving warning of a radiation leak, but fails to mention how the warning will be issued or how the pills should be distributed.

  The tablets help fight absorption by the body of radioactive iodine, one of the gases most likely to leak into the air in the event of an accident at Daya Bay.

  Radiation medicine experts say victims must swallow the tablets within two hours - and no later than 12 hours - after being exposed to the gas.

  Police on remote Ping Chau, just 12 kilometres from the Daya Bay nuclear power station, said their marine police colleagues and officers stationed on Kat O island and Tap Mun had also collected their potassium iodate tablets this week.

  The policemen have locked the bottles of pills in their gun cupboards, under instructions from the Police Public Relations Bureau not to show them to the public.

  The three districts, in the north-eastern New Territories, are home to about 800 people. Scores of picnickers arrive during winter weekends and thousands more flood to the picturesque fishing villages and beaches during summer and Lunar New Year.

  The $3.7 billion Daya Bay facility, China's largest nuclear power plant, is due to go into full operation next month, after much controversy over safety and accident warning procedures.

  Secretary for Security Frankie Lui Kin-fun has said the Government stocks 300,000 potassium iodine tablets, but wide distribution was ''not considered necessary''.

  Marine police north division officer Chan Chi-keung, on Ping Chau island, said he had collected ''two big bottles'' of the pills from police stores on Thursday.

  He believes any order to distribute the pills would come via the telephone installed at Ping Chau's police station just one month ago.

  ''I had a confidential memo on the pills. It said that this was the only method . . . if there was a leakage. It doesn't say that the pills will save the people, but it's the only thing possible. It said that it should be done as quickly as possible.''   ''Only the higher ranks'' were privy to more detailed plans for handling a nuclear emergency, according to Mr Chan. The memo contained no instructions for warning picnickers and campers, and had few suggestions on how to round up the mainly teenage crowds.

  He said it normally took up to two hours to walk around the island, and the post's four staff would have their hands full trying to find remote campers.

  ''We can only use loudspeakers because there are only a few officers here. Marine boats will help,'' Mr Chan said.

  Ping Chau has two permanent residents, plus another two people who spend part of the week on the island, and a permanent staff of four policemen and one cook, working on a rotation basis. About 40 former residents return to the island at weekends to cater for up to 2,000 visitors.

   Yuen Chun-yau, 78, has lived on Ping Chau all his life. He knows the nuclear plant is ''just beyond the hill over there'', but said the Government had not issued any advice, warnings or contingency plans.

  Chaos would ensue if police had to round up crowds of ill-informed teenage picnickers and urge them to quickly swallow iodine pills, Mr Chan said.

  ''It's not easy without a telephone system on the island, and I don't think the Chinese Government has any channels to announce an accident,'' he said.

   Resident Li Wing-wah, 66, said he had heard nothing from Hong Kong or Chinese authorities about the potential dangers of the Daya Bay plant.

  ''I've heard the news for years, but I don't know whether it's finished,'' Mr Li said.

   ''We will be killed if there is really an accident; there's no escape. I'm worried, but there's nothing else I can do. I have nowhere else to live.'' 



Anti-radiation pills issued in case of Daya Bay alert