Reference Auto

The Japan earthquake should come as a warning not only to countries using nuclear power to generate electricity, but also to nations that are racing against time to stockpile their nuclear weapons.

The latest figures (which are not corroborated though) show that Russia has 12,000 nuclear warheads and is followed by the US at 9,600, France has 300, China 250, Britain 200, India 80, Pakistan 90 and North Korea 10.

The earthquake in Japan and the tsunami that followed devastated towns and killed scores of people. It also created another (a new) kind of devastation: leakage at nuclear power plants.

The media went all out to highlight this danger and countries using nuclear power have ordered a review of the safety of their plants.

Japanese authorities were grappling to plug the leak at the reactors of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. The earthquake triggered a failure of the cooling system, which led to radiation leak.

After the Japan incident, India is treading cautiously, ordering inspection of some of its reactors. In the case of India, only three per cent of electricity is generated by nuclear power.

There is a larger threat though: countries that have stockpiled nuclear weapons face an imminent danger in case a Japan-type disaster strikes.

We are not sure how much countries spend on storage. But the US, the UK and France have substantial funds and adhere to the highest safety standards, storing these devastating weapons in earthquake-resistant chambers.

So, if a powerful earthquake of the magnitude nine on the Richter scale jolts the Nevada desert, where the US is believed to have stored substantial amounts of its nuclear weapons, what will the damage be like?

Negligible, as the US is believed to follow high standards of safety so far as nuclear weapons are concerned.

But what about countries such as China, Russia, India, Pakistan and North Korea? We are clueless on how storage is done in these countries. And what about Iran, which falls in a highly seismic zone?

It is unlikely that Iran is spending substantially on storage as it struggles to put nuclear weapons in place. And, a poverty-stricken North Korea is probably zero-compliant so far as safety of nuclear weapons is concerned.

Therefore, a similar earthquake and tsunami in Pyongyang will deal a debilitating blow not only to North Korea but also in neighbouring South Korea, Japan and parts of China.

Also, India is ramping up its nuclear presence. It has already inked pacts with Russia and France and the US is waiting in the wings to clinch the biggest contracts in the sector after the 123 nuclear deal paved the way for India to enter nuclear commerce with certain countries.

Neighbouring Pakistan has increased its stockpile manifold in the last five years and it is strongly believed that it has more nuclear warheads than India (Pakistan has 100 nuclear warheads against 60-90 by India, according to estimates).

The Japan quake may have taken a toll on the nuclear power industry and countries around the world would give it a second thought, at least in the short term, before setting up nuclear power projects.

But there are lessons to be learnt for countries with nuclear weapons also. They need to hike their spending in not only piling up their weapons but also ensure that nuclear storage is foolproof and resistant to earthquakes along with other types of catastrophe: otherwise the world could face a nuclear disaster even without a nuclear war.