3 workers die in accident at nuclear power plant in S. Korea

USPA News - Three workers were killed Friday in an apparent gas leak at the construction site of a nuclear reactor in South Korea, local media reported, days after hackers stole sensitive documents about the country`s nuclear reactors and posted them online. The accident happened just after 5 p.m. local time when three construction workers were found dead at the construction site of a reactor at the Shin-Kori nuclear power plant in Gori, a suburb of Busan, about 325 kilometers (202 miles) southeast of Seoul.

A decontamination team was sent to the scene to investigate. Bae Kyong-min, an official at the Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power Company (KHNP), told the Yonhap news agency that the workers were believed to have died after nitrogen gas leaked from an underground cable at the site. The reactor, with a rated capacity of 1,400 megawatts, is near completion for full operation, which is scheduled for June 2015. Other details about Sunday`s accident were not immediately available. The accident comes amid safety concerns after a series of cyber attacks that led to the theft of sensitive documents about South Korea`s nuclear reactors, though officials have stressed the stolen documents were not classified and could not be used to cause an accident. Documents posted online have included blueprints of facilities and safety analysis reports. A recent message posted online by hackers threatened to "destroy reactors" if the South Korean government did not shut down two of its nuclear power plants, including the Shin-Kori nuclear power plant, by Christmas. The Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power Company, which operates 23 nuclear reactors in South Korea, has said that an external attack is virtually impossible because the networks which control nuclear reactors are completely cut off from the outside world. But even if hackers were able to penetrate the inner networks, the reactors can be manually shut down in a matter of seconds.