CBRN event in Pakistan on Sun 16th June 1996

While monitoring boiler room through CCTV during plant start-up, flames were observed in the vicinity of one of the main coolant pumps. Reactor was immediately shut down, and primary heat transport system crash cooled to 300 deg. F. Shift fire fighting crew rushed to the affected area to extinguish the fire. At the fire site it was observed that the insulating material of the piping close to the main coolant pump was burning.

A thorough survey of the boiler room was carried out afterwards to assess the damage caused by the fire and the integrity of the equipments in the vicinity of the fire. The thermal lagging on one of the main coolant pump bowl and suction header, and leads of the temperature detectors of the pump we found burnt.

Justification: The event frequency falls in the category "low" as per definition of annexure III-A.3.1 of the INES User's Manual. The safety system was available in full, therefore, using table II of the manual the event is rated at scale "0" (below scale).