RUSSIAN NUCLEAR POWER STATION STAGES LARGE-SCALE EXERCISE
RIA news agency
6 Sep 05
Moscow, 6 September: A scheduled comprehensive anti-emergency exercise
started at the Kola nuclear power station today, RIA-Novosti learnt
at the Rosenergoatom concern. Taking part in the exercise is a group
for providing urgent help to nuclear power stations.
The main aim of the exercise is to improve cooperation and exchange
of information in case of an emergency at a nuclear power station,
to check how the personnel, special equipment and communications are
working in an emergency mode.
Under the scenario for the exercise, “there has been a hypothetical
major accident [Russ: zaproyektnaya avariya] involving the breakage
of the collector of the 3rd steam generator at the reactor of the 4th
power unit of the Kola nuclear power station, followed by a release
of radioactive material into the atmosphere”. A state of emergency
has been announced at the nuclear power station and the evacuation
of the personnel has been organized.
At the moment experts from Rosenergoatom and the group for providing
urgent help to nuclear power stations and representatives of research
and design institutes of Rosatom [the Federal Agency for Atomic Energy]
and the Russian Academy of Sciences are holding consultations with
the participants in the exercise through a video conference call.
International experts from the USA, France, Finland, Sweden, Norway,
Armenia and Ukraine are watching the exercise.
In addition to special-purpose groups, representatives of insurance
companies have also arrived at the Kola nuclear power station to
assess the damage to the station and the population.
“Insurance against such accidents provides for liability to third
countries, the Scandinavian countries in particular,” Rosenergoatom’s
Deputy Director-General Viktor Cherkasov [as received, should be
Nikolay Sorokin] has said.
Rosenergoatom’s technical director has said the exercise at the
Kola nuclear power station costs R25m, “including R22m for technical
equipment and R3m for the exercises of the group for providing urgent
help to nuclear power stations”.
One thousand and sixty-nine people and 94 pieces of technical equipment
are taking part in the exercise.
“In the exercise, we envisage events which in real life are not
possible at a nuclear power station,” Sorokin stressed. He said
for instance that as part of the exercise at the Kola nuclear power
station “20 per cent of the fuel in the active zone has been damaged,
which is impossible in real life”.
Sorokin also said that the next exercise would be held at the
Novovoronezhskaya nuclear power station in 2006.