Madras Atomic Power Station in Kalpakkam conducts surprise site emergency exercise

The Department of Atomic Energy’s (DAE) centre in Kalpakkam, about 80 kilometres from Chennai, successfully conducted a surprise/ unannounced annual site emergency exercise on Monday. In a statement, the Station Director of Madras Atomic Power Station (MAPS) and the Site Emergency Director, Kalpakkam DAE Centre, R Satyanarayana said the annual emergency exercise was conducted on Monday. [caption id=“attachment_5059551” align=“alignnone” width=“1280”] The Kalpakkam Reprocessing Plant in Tamil nadu. Image courtesy: Tamil Nadu[/caption] He said the DAE has several units in Kalpakkam like the MAPS, Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR), under construction Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR), facilities of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) and under construction Fast Reactor Fuel Cycle Facility (FRFCF). According to Satyanarayana emergency exercise is conducted to test the preparedness of the various units in meeting any remote emergency situation. During the drill, various emergency processes were tested such as sheltering of personnel in their respective units; mock decontamination of the injured person; administration of chocolate (in the notional absence of stable iodine tablets) to the personnel as protective action and evacuation of non-essential people from the site. According to the statement, over 10,000 people participated in the exercise and 6,500 people were evacuated by official buses and the remaining went out on their own vehicles. The evacuation process took two hours while the entire Site Emergency exercise took 2.30 hours.