1989 – Vandellos (Spain) A fire broke out in the turbine hall of the Vandellos NPP, resulting indirectly in a flood and damaging various systems, including the reactor cooling system. The Spanish government decided to shut down the reactor definitively in November 1992. 1991 – Forbach (Moselle département(*), France) Three temporary worker employees were severely irradiated when they entered into an industrial accelerator in operation. 2005 – Sellafield (United Kingdom) Within the Thorp reprocessing plant, 83,000 litres of highly radioactive liquefied fuel containing uranium and concentrated nitric acid leaked into a stainless steel chamber containing 200 kg of plutonium. 2007 – Kashiwazaki-Kariwa (Japan) The power plant was hit by an earthquake of magnitude 6.8 on the Richter scale; the epicentre was situated about 10 km away. The earthquake caused a fire which was brought under control two hours after it broke out, and releases of water containing radioactive elements into the sea. 2008 – Toulouse (Haute-Garonne département(*), France) A temporary-contract employee was irradiated by a cobalt-60 source at the French aerospace research centre (Onera). Level 2 1992 – Sosnovy Bor (Russia) A water intake valve on one of the 1,660 pressure tubes of reactor 3 – a RBMK reactor – closed causing the destruction of the fuel element and the pressure tube. 1999 – Blayais (Gironde département(*), France) During the storm that hit France in 1999, the lower sections of reactors 1 and 2, and to a lesser extent of reactors 3 and 4 of the Blayais NPP, were flooded, forcing the shutdown of three of its four reactors. 2006 – Plutonium technology facility of Cadarache (Bouches-du-Rhône département(*), France) The quantity of plutonium in the containment buildings was underestimated, which significantly reduced the design-basis safety margins established to prevent a criticality accident, the potential consequences of which could be serious for the workers. 2006 – Forsmark (Sweden) The emergency electrical power supply system of the Forsmark NPP reactor 1 failed. The electrical power supply was restored after a few hours, avoiding uncovering of the core. 2007 – Dijon (Côte d’Or département(*), France) A radiographer was irradiated during the radiotherapy treatment of a patient. 2008 – Krško (Slovenia) A leak on the reactor primary cooling system caused the reactor to be shut down. The leak was contained in the reactor containment. 2009 – Cruas-Meysse (Ardèche département(*), France) Systems cooling was lost, jeopardising the safety of reactor 4. 2011 – Fort Calhoun (United States) The Fort Calhoun NPP was flooded when the river Missouri burst its banks. Level 1 More than a hundred level-1 events are observed each year in France. Level 0 More than a hundred level-0 events are observed each year in France. INES (International Nuclear Event Scale) scale for classifying nuclear incidents and accidents Major accident (Chernobyl, Fukushima) Serious accident Accident with wider consequences (Three Mile Island) Serious incident Incident Anomaly Accident with local consequences 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 INCIDENT ACCIDENT The need to inform the public of the severity of nuclear events, particularly after the Chernobyl accident in 1986, led to the development of classification scales. The INES scale was originally put into application on an experimental basis in France by the French High Council for Nuclear Safety and Information (CSSIN), starting in spring 1988. It was strongly promoted by Pierre Desgraupes, vice-chairman of the CSSIN, and was adopted by the IAEA in 1991. In 2002, ASN proposed a new version of this scale to take account of radiation protection events (irradiation, contamination), particularly events affecting workers, whatever the place of the incident. Later on, in July 2008, the IAEA published a revised INES scale that allows events occurring in the area of transport or leading to human exposure to radioactive sources to be better taken into account. Nuclear accidents and developments in nuclear safety and radiation protection • 7
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