Wolsong Nuclear Power Plant Reactor No.1 in Gyeongju / Yonhap

By Ko Dong-hwan

Most kindergartens and schools close to nuclear power plants in Korea are either not equipped with a sufficient number of protective suits or lack such gear altogether, a lawmaker said.

Rep. Kim Young-ho of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) said Monday that over 388,000 students in 1,112 kindergartens and elementary, middle and high schools in the country are located inside Urgent Protective Action Planning Zones (UPZ) ― within 20 to 30 kilometers of a nuclear power plant, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Busan has 692 such educational facilities, while Ulsan has 239, Gangwon Province 10, North Jeolla Province 54, South Jeolla Province 45, North Gyeongsang Province 47 and South Gyeongsang Province 25, according to the lawmaker.

He said that out of these schools, only 36 with 6,744 students were equipped with protective suits, which is just 1.7 percent of the total number of students within UPZs.

The situation was worse in schools located in the immediate vicinity of nuclear plants. The IAEA designated areas within three to five kilometers of a power plant as Precautionary Action Zones (PAZes), from which residents should evacuate immediately in cases of radioactive leakage from the plant. Rep. Kim said that there are 8,576 students in 51 schools or kindergartens within PAZes in the country. Busan has 11 such facilities, while Daejeon has 16, Ulsan 4, North Jeolla 2, South Jeolla 6 and North Gyeongsang 12. But among those schools, only 12 of the schools were equipped with a total of 2,461 protective suits.

Only 23 schools in Yeonggwang County in South Jeolla Province and 10 schools in Uljin, North Gyeongsang Province were fully equipped with the gear, which was financed by the local governments and Hanul Nuclear Power Plants in Uljin. Three schools in Ulsan, though in an insufficient number, prepared the gear using their own budgets.

The state-run Nuclear Safety and Security Commission (NSSC) responded to Rep. Kim's findings that in a nuclear emergency, people are first advised to evacuate or take thyroid blocking agents rather than put on protective suits. The state authority added that there are no regulations in the country that require protective suits to be available in kindergartens or schools near a nuclear power plant.

"Natural disasters like earthquakes and typhoons have increased in number due to the climate crisis," Rep. Kim said. "Especially for students near nuclear power plants that are concentrated in coastal regions, it is urgent to come up with measures to provide them with safety."

He urged the country's education ministry and local metropolitan offices of education to cooperate with the NSSC to check how well schools near nuclear power plants nationwide are equipped with protective gear and provide the schools with new guidelines as to which equipment is in accordance with the IAEA.

News reports on Sept. 20 that seven tons of potential radioactive waters were leaking each day from cracks at a spent nuclear fuel storage tank at Wolsong Nuclear Power Plant Reactor No. 1 in Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang Province rocked the country. The plant, after starting operations in 1982, had been permanently shut down in 2018 after its 30-year life expectancy expired but received technical upgrades to continue operating for a few years longer.