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Russian Nuclear Power Station Stages Large-Scale Exercise

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  • Russian Nuclear Power Station Stages Large-Scale Exercise

    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.
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