SYDNEY - An earthquake fault line has been found under the site of a A$300 million ($171 million) nuclear reactor to be built in Sydney, Australia's biggest city, authorities said last week.
Argentine state firm INVAP SE was given approval in April to build the research-only facility on Sydney's southern outskirts to replace an ageing reactor but Australia's nuclear watchdog says more studies are now needed before the project proceeds. The fault line was discovered during recent excavation work, said Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency regulatory director Don MacNab.
"We've got to examine the fault line to find its extent and to find its age," MacNab told reporters.
"When we get a final report...we'll be able to make some judgments about the suitability of the site, but it doesn't automatically mean the site is not suitable," he said.
Environmentalists and other nuclear opponents vowed to block the replacement project when it was announced, particularly in light of security concerns after the September 11 hijacked plane attacks on the United States.
Environmental group Greenpeace called for the project to be cancelled after the fault line was discovered.
"It's really time for the Australian government to bite the bullet and shut this project down," Greenpeace nuclear spokesman Stephen Campbell told Australian Broadcasting Corp radio.
The project is due to be completed by 2005.
The existing 44-year-old facility at Lucas Heights on the southern outskirts of Sydney is Australia's only nuclear reactor and produces radioisotopes for use in more than 440,000 nuclear medicine procedures in Australia each year.
Australia is contained within one tectonic plate and is regarded as relatively stable in seismological terms compared with highly volatile areas around Papua New Guinea to the continent's north and New Zealand to the east.
The last significant earthquake around Sydney was a tremor in 1999 measuring 4.5 on the open-ended Richter scale, centred around 80 km (50 miles) south of the city, said Australia's Seismic Research Centre which has run studies on the Lucas Heights site and monitors it regularly.
"Basically we haven't picked up anything for years other than local mine blasts," centre spokesman Adam Pascale told Reuters.
"You can have any size earthquake anywhere, any time. But in comparison they'll get a magnitude seven up in Papua New Guinea every year, we'll get one every 10,000 or 20,000 years."
Australia's most damaging earthquake hit Newcastle, 110 km (68 miles) north of Sydney, in 1989. Although a relatively moderate 5.6 on the Richter scale, it killed 13 people, most of whom were in a social club which collapsed.:
