MELCOR

I

INEX 2 EXERCISE - EXPERIENCE AND PERSPECTIVES 

 1. Introduction 

Inspired by the experience of INEX-1 exercise, which was a tabletop nuclear emergency exercise in 1993, OECD/NEA decided to organize and to sponsor the second international nuclear emergency exercise INEX-2. The recommendation has been given to devise INEX-2 as a series of regional exercises. In each region one accident-host country will integrate the exercise objectives into a national exercise, and this will form the core of INEX-2. Following the scenario in the accident-host country, border countries and far-field countries will participate simultaneously, activating their own emergency organisation and existing bilateral and multilateral notification and communication agreements.

 There are four national exercises on the schedule of INEX-2. Two have already been organized (Swiss and Finnish exercises) and two are still to be performed (in Canada in April, 1998, and in Hungary - date has not been determined yet).

The basic objectives of the INEX-2 exercises are:- real-time exchange of information (for the most of participating countries the IAEA EMERCON notification is used, and for EU countries ECURIE system), 

- decision making in real time and with limited data, 

- public information (press releases, public briefings, press conferences). 

Beside these fundamental objectives there is a principle of “evolving objectives”, which means tailoring the objectives to the specific needs, which will evolve from the experiences of the previous exercises.

2. Slovenian experience on the Swiss and Finnish exercise 

Beside the participation of the organizations at the national level, one Regional Civil Protection Headquarters was activated to test the communication and to pass the relevant information and/or orders from the National Civil Protection Headquarters to the Regional Civil Protection Headquarters. Due to the nature of the event there were no specific action to be required from the regional Civil Protection Headquarters, therefore this unit has little to do during the exercise, because there were no special provisions in the national scenario for them. Perhaps, it seems, that the level of simulated activities is somehow inverse proportional to the distance between the country, taking part at the exercise, and the country of the accident. This might be reasonable, because the consequences of the accident, in principle, decrease with the distance. 

In Slovenia the participation at the exercise was mainly limited to the Nuclear Safety Administration and Civil Protection Headquarters with some experts from other organizations (e. g. Ministry of Health, Meteorological Service, Governmental Office for Public Information, nuclear science and radiological experts) participating in the structures of the above mentioned organizations. In the future exercises more emphasis should be given to the participation of governmental and non-governmental organizations to public information. In Slovenian case there were no special simulation of news agency, therefore the news from the international news agency were received at the SNSA, which had on-line access to these news. In the future Governmental Office for Public Relations and Media shall play the role of news receiver. 

In the field of communication the following were tested: facsimile, telephone and e-mail. Occasionally, on international level the teleprinters should be tested (communication : IAEA - national contact point) and on the national level (at least in case of Slovenia) the radio and cordless communications should be used and tested. 

The decision making was satisfactory covered, except that the prime minister or his cabinet were neither involved neither simulated. In the decision making only the top level was involved (i.e. national level), maybe in some cases the regional initiative could emerge. The “regional decision making” was not tested during the exercise.

3. Future exercises and conclusions 

The new INEX-2 exercises will have to establish better interface between the accident-host country and other participants (border and far field countries) at designing the scenario, although these are primarily national exercises - the need for the international exercise will have to be fulfilled not only in terms of notification and communication but at planning the countermeasures as well. The measurements of the on-line monitoring systems will have to be simulated for foreign participants. More bilateral or multilateral agreements on communication the monitoring data between the countries will have to be agreed, therefore the common protocol for international on-line data transfer should be determined and accepted by the most of the countries and IAEA could promote this issue. The need for the on-line reliable database with relevant data (project parameters which could be used for accident progression) on all nuclear power plants was identified.