Dear editor,
I do not believe that Korean nuclear reactors are safer than all the other reactors in the world. In the long range, it would be safer to follow the example of other countries and close half the reactors.
I also do not forget that North Korea has nuclear reactors of its own and that they may have been built with shoddy technology considering their habitual secrecy.
Korea does not have the kind of earthquakes that Japan experiences but President Lee Myung-bak’s assurance of safety leaves me shaking my head in disbelief. South Korea is not invulnerable to sabotage from the North or other defects. It has been known that, in the past, Korean companies have tried to cut corners to save money.
South Korea had better reconsider its position on this matter. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Likewise, prevention is worth more than a future catastrophe. We are destroying the Earth and human beings for the sake of greed or necessity.
It may be time to take a good look at what we are building in our environment. Nuclear reactors can never be declared completely safe.
The crisis at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant is the third biggest catastrophe after Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. Notice that these incidents happened in different countries that were technologically advanced.
Romy Kerwin
Toronto, Canada