It happened in the maintenance tasks of this nuclear facility in Tarragona and the deceased is one of its firefighters
One person died and three others were injured (one serious) this Wednesday afternoon at the Ascó nuclear power plant (Tarragona), as a result of a carbon dioxide (CO2) leak. The four victims are workers at the facilities and the deceased was a member of its internal firefighting services, which were the first to intervene.
According to sources from the Bombers de la Generalitat, the occupational accident occurred while recharging a fire-fighting system, “which works with CO2.” For reasons not specified there was a leak and several people were poisoned by the dioxide that came out. This element is usually used to put out fires instead of water because, “at the moment in which the ignition occurs, the CO2 used displaces the oxygen and without it the combustion ends”, reports Europa Press.
Between the work of the firefighters and the plant’s own personnel, they managed to reestablish safety conditions. In any case, the cited sources insisted that it was an incident “not linked to radiological activity” in Ascó. In fact, the plant continued to operate at all times with no apparent problem.
It was a worker who alerted the 112 emergency telephone number of the event, during maintenance work. The company that operates the plant – which has two nuclear reactors – did not make any notice, according to the Mossos.
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