Indonesia should go nuclear, says councilor

The Bangka Belitung Council on Thursday said the government should go ahead with plans to build a nuclear plant there.

Council spokesman, Ismiryadi, said Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam also had plans to build nuclear power plants.

He said if the neighboring countries realized their plans and something happened to their nuclear plants, there would not be any guarantees Indonesia would be safe from the impacts.

“Considering their potential impacts, why don’t we build our own here? Would you prefer to suffer from the impacts [of nuclear radiation] from [Bangka Belitung] or from a neighboring country?” Ismiryadi said in Pangkal Pinang as quoted by kompas.com.

He added that the radiation leakage from Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan following a devastating earthquake should not stop plans to build a nuclear reactor in Bangka.

To prevent such leakages, the plant’s structure should be earthquake-resistant, he said, adding that a feasibility study showed that the province was relatively safe from quakes.