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Saturday, May 7 The Joint Conference for the Shelving of the
Daya Bay Plant yesterday disagreed with the Harwell report which had ruled out an evacuation plan for HK, the media reported, quoting a spokesman for the group, Fung Chi-wood.
He said that there should be an evacuation plan for at least the one million people living in the northeastern region of the
territory.
However, a senior lecturer of the Chinese University, Tso Wung-wai, said that an evacuation plan was not necessary. Radio-3 quoted the director of HK office of the Friend of the Earth Linda Siddall as describing the Harwell report as "fatally flawed".
A member of the environmental protection advisory committee, Wan Shek-lun, said that the Harwell report had failed to touch on the root of the problem.
Ming Pao said in an editorial that the Harwell report could not give any help to those who were worried about the safety of the Daya Bay plant.
Linda Siddall of the Friends of the Earth was quoted.. by the SCM Post as saying that the report was clearly biased to mislead the people into thinking that the plant was utterly safe.
Rev-Fung Chi-wood of the Joint Conference for the Shelving of these? Daya Bay said the proposal to rule out evacuation even for New Territories urban centres was irresponsible.
A PAS for Economic Services, John Wilson, refuted on ATV-Diamond's "Newsline" a suggestion that the commissioning of the UK Atomic Energy Authority to draw up a study report on the Daya Bay plant was a result of the accident in Chernobyl.
Mr Wilson stressed that the decision to commission the UKAEA was made long before the Chernobyl tragedy happened. The Government thought that there was a need for expert advise and a spectrum of matters including contingency planning.
He believed that the Daya Bay plant would be a very modern and safe station. He added that it was prudent to ensure that there were plans in place to cope with the unlikely event of a serious accident at the plant.