Kalpakkam: The Madras Atomic Power Station's nuclear power generating facilities are safe, and the unit which was shutdown as a precautionary measure when the tsunami hit will restart in a week's time, the secretary in the Department of Atomic Energy and chairman, Atomic Energy Commission, Anil Kakodkar, said yesterday.

More than 60 people, five of them staffers, were killed when the tsunami flooded the residential colony.

Of them, 25 were relatives of the employees, the rest fishermen. The people have been relocated, and today they started returning to their houses.

One worker was killed at the construction site of the proposed Prototype Fast-Breeder Reactor when the wave flooded the 17-metre pit where 150 workers were pouring concrete.

Their supervisor saw the sea break through a compound wall and warned them in time, Kakodkar said.

He told reporters at Kalpakkam, 50 km south of Chennai, that the 220mw second unit was shutdown when operators saw water rising in the sea water pump house. The operator shut down the plant with "just a touch of a button," he said, referring to the emergency shut down procedure.

The other unit, a 170mw unit, was not operating at that time as it was being refurbished.

Before the unit can be restarted, standard checks will have to be completed and experts from the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board will have to inspect the facility, all of which could take less than a week, he said.