BarcelonaCan a glass of water cause a nuclear accident? The probability is slim, but it is what happened on March 28, 1979 at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant, in the United States. A small amount of water – the equivalent of a glass – leaked through a leak in the pneumatic system, activating some valves that ended up closing the cold water circuit that was supposed to cool the core. The emergency system failed because a few days earlier the technicians had left the tubes that connected it to the circuit closed and the light that was supposed to warn that something was wrong didn’t activate either. The result was a partial meltdown of the reactor core, thankfully with no direct fatalities. Separately, all those errors would have been minor and, in fact, most had already been recorded at that and other nuclear plants. But, together, they starred in one of the worst nuclear accidents to date.
The incident at Three Mile Island inspired Charles Perrow, a renowned sociologist at Yale University, to promulgate his theory of the normal accident. Perrow assumed that modern systems – nuclear power plants or, for example, railway infrastructures – are made up of thousands of interrelated parts that are impossible to track individually to predict their behavior. The theory concludes that there are accidents that can happen without clear causes, obvious mistakes and without movie villains. The random factor is therefore a fundamental part.
In the past week, two fatal accidents have caused panic and chaos in the state railway system. In Adamuz, investigations seem to point to poor welding on a small piece of track as the cause of the derailment of two trains. In Gelida it was a wall that fell and hit the train cabin. Applying the normal accident theory, both were possible. And in both, randomness has played an important factor: if the wall in Gelida had fallen – as on other occasions – when no train was running, the incidence would have been less and, probably, if two trains had not coincided at the same time on the damaged part of the Via d’Adamuz, the consequences would not have been so dramatic.
Future plans
But it happened. And, since then, the feeling of insecurity on the tracks has only grown, with users awaiting spot checks to certify that trains could run again. To regain the trust of citizens, administrations will have to respond with transparency, assuming the responsibilities that belong to them and announcing improvements that probably would not have gone ahead without the accidents. In Rodalies, the Spanish government recognizes that historical underfunding makes the network “more vulnerable”. Everyone has plans and theories for the future, but the study of randomness, as University of California physicist Leonard Mladinow reminds us, tells us that crystal balls are only for observing the past.
The details of the week
Salvador Illa is recuperating in hospital and while he is on leave councilor Albert Dalmau is delegated his duties. It is an anomalous situation that has caused curious moments, such as when the Government spokesperson, Sílvia Paneque, referred to the councilor as “president Dalmau”. Catalunya Ràdio named him Òscar Dalmau who, interestingly enough, works at the competition.
To get ahead of a predictable event of relevance, we in the media prepare stories that we keep in the fridge until it’s time to publish them. Every journalist’s fear is that one will be published prematurely, especially if it is about someone’s death. It’s not common, but it happens. This week it was Ser’s turn to publish the obituaries of Jordi Pujol and Pasqual Maragall by mistake.
