German nuclear plants are vulnerable to terrorist attacks: Study

Germany’s nuclear power plants are insufficiently protected against potential terror attacks, including 9/11-style ones, according to a newly-released study.

A nuclear plant’s smokescreen designed to prevent any attacks on it from air provides only minimal protection for the facility, Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA) news agency reported, citing findings presented by Oda Becker, a physicist and independent expert on nuclear plants, at the German Federation for the Environment and Nature Conservation (BUND) congress in Berlin on Thursday.

Such smokescreen “only slightly diminishes a chance of collision with a plane,” hijacked by terrorists. Additionally, only two out of eight currently operating nuclear plants in Germany are equipped with such systems, the report points out.

According to Becker’s research, another significant threat to German nuclear plants is posed by a possible terrorist attack using helicopters filled with explosives. A fall of an aircraft rigged with explosives on a nuclear plant could lead to a “massive release of radiation,” as nuclear facilities in Germany are not designed to withstand explosions of such scale.

Reliability tests have demonstrated that the plants’ personnel cannot possibly prevent terrorists from infiltrating the facility and committing a terrorist act there, the study adds.

In another study published March 8 and titled “Nuclear power 2016 – secure, clean, everything under control?” Becker listed insufficient security standards, natural disasters, terrorist attacks and emergencies caused by the deterioration of the German nuclear plants’ security systems as major threats to the industry.

“A serious accident is possible in case of every German nuclear plant,” she said at that time, adding that “there are no appropriate accident management plans.” Becker added that temporary nuclear waste storage sites can also pose a serious threat to people, as they can also be targeted by terrorists and lack relevant security systems.

“The interim [nuclear waste] storages lack protection against aircraft crashes and dangers posed by terrorists,” Becker said, adding that security aspects of the future nuclear waste storage should be discussed, including possible security upgrades of the existing storage sites and the establishment of new facilities.

According to Belgian media, Brussels suicide bombers Khalid and Ibrahim El-Bakraoui were already planning attacks on nuclear plants, although not in Germany but in Belgium. The arrest of Paris attacker Salah Abdeslam allegedly thwarted their plans and forced them to choose another target.

The Bakraoui brothers planted a hidden camera in front of the home of the director of the Belgian nuclear research program and managed to record dozens of hours of his movements, according to the Belgian newspaper Dernier Heure. The footage was subsequently seized by police in the apartment of another suspect from the same terrorist cell, Mohammed Bakkali.

Following the deadly Brussels attacks on Tuesday, which claimed 31 lives and left about 300 people injured, Belgium’s two nuclear power stations were swiftly evacuated.

MG