Fire damages Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant server, documents

A fire damaged the internal server room of the Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant early Monday, but the incident was kept under wraps for two days and came to light only today (9 September).

Neither the Ministry of Science and Technology nor the Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission, the owner of the $12.65 billion project, made the incident public. The fire reportedly damaged a large number of official documents stored at the plant.

The fire broke out at around 4am on 7 September.

According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), internal servers at nuclear power plants process and archive large volumes of data related to plant performance, security, logistics, communications, regulatory compliance, and document control.

The IAEA says nuclear facilities typically use strictly segregated networks. As a result, damage to an internal server room could cause severe administrative and logistical disruptions but would not directly compromise nuclear safety as long as safety-related systems remain operational.

In a statement issued tonight, the Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant Construction Project and Bangladesh Nuclear Energy Commission said the fire occurred outside the plant's main facilities. Therefore, the incident will not affect the construction or commissioning of the main facilities, and the plant's operations are continuing normally.

"The fire partially damaged office furniture, documents, and IT and communication equipment in two rooms of a temporary building. The fire is initially suspected to have originated from a fault in the indoor unit of a split-type air conditioner, although the matter remains under investigation," it added.

Science and technology ministry's Secretary Md Anwar Hossain said the fire would not affect plant operations.

"There are four sets of hard copies [of each document] preserved manually. The damage to the internal server room will not cause any impact," he said.

The fire service initially suspected that an electrical short circuit may have caused the fire. A probe committee has been formed to determine the cause of the fire.

IAEA team recommended enhancing fire safety last year

An IAEA Pre-Operational Safety Review Team (Pre-OSART) mission assessed Unit 1 of the Rooppur plant in August last year ahead of its planned commercial operation.

It recommended several measures to further strengthen safety, including enhancing fire-safety arrangements and prevention measures to ensure effective mitigation of fire risks and an effective response to fires.

It also recommended improving supervision, standards and plant operations, as well as strengthening arrangements for equipment preservation during commissioning to ensure adequate protection of systems and components.

Officials at the BAEC said the reactor continues to operate normally despite the server-room damage, with safety systems automatically maintaining stable and safe operation.

However, the damage could have wider operational implications. The loss of internal servers could disrupt digital communication systems, including intranets, email, Wi-Fi and VoIP networks, while cutting access to work-management systems used for maintenance, safety tagging and work orders.

Electronic access-control systems, biometric logs and CCTV storage could also be affected, forcing security personnel to rely on manual verification.

If backup systems were also compromised, years of non-safety operational data, equipment performance records and maintenance trends could potentially be lost, affecting predictive maintenance and future engineering work, officials said.

 Hardware replacement costs, administrative disruption and delays to engineering activities could also impose significant financial and operational burdens, potentially further delaying the commissioning of the first unit, which is scheduled to go into operation by this December.