'Earthquakes are warning us; Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant construction should be stopped'

Photo: Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant construction (Rosatom)

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Mersin Anti-Nuclear Platform held a press conference yesterday (February 20), reminding that Mersin is one of the cities where there is the risk of an earthquake and requesting the construction of the Akkuyu nuclear power plant be stopped.

Members of the platform met at the Human Rights Association (İHD) Mersin branch two weeks after the February 6 earthquakes which resulted in vast destruction and more than 40 thousand deaths identified so far in ten cities in the south of Türkiye.

Osman Koçak, the spokesperson of the platform read out the statement.

"This wave of earthquakes have shown us that earthquakes are, despite all scientific and technological advance of humankind, natural events for which we can make estimations but we cannot foresee the time, the place, the magnitude of, and therefore the area to be affected and the destruction to result," said Koçak.

Photo: Yeşil Gazete (Green newspaper)

Registered earthquakes and tsunamis

Koçak explained that there have been earthquakes and tsunamis around Mersin that could affect the location where Akkuyu nuclear power plant is being built, registered between 1953 and 2023.

"The time, place, and magnitude of an earthquake and tsunami cannot be foreseen," he added.

Koçak said that therefore it was entirely baseless that the announcement by Rosatom, the state nuclear power company of Russia constructing the Akkuyu power plant, states that the February 6 earthquakes did not have any negative impact on the construction and that an earthquake with a magnitude of 9 would not affect the power plant.

Construction should be stopped

"Protecting our lives from the wastes of nuclear power plants, the demolishing of the nuclear power plants at the end of their lives, their economic burden, them being unnecessary for energy, and the accidents arising for operational mistakes are separately sufficient reasons to do away with nuclear power plants," the statement was saying.

It added, "We are warning the government, the opposition, and the public once again that it is obligatory that the construction of the Akkuyu nuclear power plant should be stopped at once and that the Sinop and İğneada projects should be canceled. (TY/PE)