Qualla: Karachi Nuclear Power Complex

Karachi Nuclear Power Complex: Introduction

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

At a headland called Paradise Point, on the coast of the Arabian Sea just west of Karachi, sits a facility whose history mirrors the tensions of nuclear diplomacy itself. The Karachi Nuclear Power Complex -- KANUPP -- began as a Canadian-built reactor in 1971, designed in part to balance India's own nuclear ambitions. Half a century later, it has grown into a three-unit complex generating over 2,000 megawatts, its newest reactors supplied not by Canada but by China. The story of KANUPP is a story of shifting alliances, technological self-reliance born of necessity, and the complicated legacy of atoms for peace.

Karachi Nuclear Power Complex: One Physicist's Persistence

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The plant owes its existence largely to Abdus Salam, the theoretical physicist who would later win Pakistan's first Nobel Prize. In 1960, serving as science adviser to President Ayub Khan, Salam lobbied the United Nations General Assembly for civilian nuclear power in developing ...

Karachi Nuclear Power Complex: Abandoned by Its Makers

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

For three years, the arrangement worked. Canada supplied the deuterium oxide moderator and natural uranium fuel that the CANDU pressurized heavy-water reactor required. Then, in 1974, India detonated a nuclear device using fissile material produced in a Canadian-supplied reactor....

Karachi Nuclear Power Complex: A New Partner, A New Scale

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

With Canada gone, Pakistan turned east. China agreed to supply two Hualong One reactors -- designated K-2 and K-3 -- each with a gross capacity of 1,100 megawatts, dwarfing the original Canadian unit. K-2 achieved criticality in February 2021 and was connected to the national gri...

Karachi Nuclear Power Complex: Living Beside the Atom

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

KANUPP sits on the coast of a city of over 16 million people. Fishermen cast nets within sight of the cooling water outlets. Concerns about safety have shadowed the facility throughout its life -- a tritium leak in 2011 drew attention, though officials said no damage resulted. En...