[ RadSafe ] Romania hosts nuclear disaster simulation

[John Jacobus]

>From Nature published online: 9 May 2005.  The link is
at the end of this posting.
-------------

Romania hosts nuclear disaster simulation
Michael Hopkin 

International exercise will test communication lines
in event of catastrophe. 
 
PICTURE:  Cernavoda, Romania's only nuclear power
plant, is set for a fake emergency.
© DANIEL MIHAILESCU/AFP/Getty Images 
 
A nuclear power station in Romania will be the scene
of a full-scale emergency operation this week, albeit
a simulated one. Officials at the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA) will lead a team of eight
agencies and 62 countries in testing responses to a
Chernobyl-style nuclear accident.

The 39-hour operation will begin on 11 May at the
Cernavoda power plant in eastern Romania. After a
pretend accident, officials will enact reporting the
emergency, evaluating necessary health measures for
those exposed, and tracking weather patterns to see
where the fallout will land and which neighbouring
countries should be notified.

The exercise is a chance to test international
communication lines, says Malcolm Crick, head of the
IAEA's Emergency Preparedness and Response Unit in
Vienna, Austria, from where officials will oversee the
exercise. "We will be looking at how we coordinate
requests for information and advice," he says.

The IAEA and its collaborators aim to simulate a
nuclear disaster once every four years; the last was
held in 2001 in the town of Gravelines, on the north
coast of France. "It's a big event for us," says
Crick. "It's like the Olympic Games; we don't go any
bigger than this." 

Although IAEA member states hold regular domestic
safety drills, Crick adds, the chance to test
readiness on an international scale is a valuable one.

Documented leak

Wednesday's proceedings will begin at an unspecified
time in the morning, when the IAEA's Incident and
Emergency Centre will receive details of a fictitious
leak of radioactive matter from the plant. It will
then notify collaborators including the World Health
Organization (WHO), the European Commission, the World
Meteorological Organization, NATO and Interpol. Real
weather forecasts will be used to track the path that
a release of fallout would take.

The response to a major leak, like the one following
the explosion at the Chernobyl plant in the former
Soviet Union in 1986, depends on effective
communication, says Zhanat Carr, coordinator of the
WHO's Radiation Emergency Medical Preparedness and
Assistance Network. "No matter how ready you are, if
there's no communication the response will not work,"
she says.

Carr's network consists of some 30 centres around the
world, which are ready to dispense medical advice or
dispatch a health consultant to the scene of an
emergency if requested. Such consultants are prepared
to make decisions such as whether to administer
potassium iodide tablets to prevent thyroid damage in
those exposed to fallout.

Meanwhile, Romanian domestic officials will check
their own readiness to deal with a radiation leak, by
staging an evacuation of nearby villages and testing
lines of communication to countries that would be
affected. 

Story from news at nature.com:
http://news.nature.com//news/2005/050509/050509-3.html

  
  © 2004 Nature Publishing Group | Privacy policy 

+++++++++++++++++++
"Embarrassed, obscure and feeble sentences are generally, if not always, the result of embarrassed, obscure and feeble thought."
Hugh Blair, 1783

-- John
John Jacobus, MS
Certified Health Physicist
e-mail:  crispy_bird at yahoo.com

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