2023-11-22 21:42:49
For two days, this Thursday and Friday, state services will be on war footing around the Nogent-sur-Seine (Aube) nuclear power plant, the closest to Paris. They will work on a nuclear disaster scenario which will only be revealed to the participants on the big day.
Objective, according to the prefecture: “test on a large scale the departmental and national coordination of operational services (prefecture, Institute of Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety, Nuclear Safety Authority, EDF, National Gendarmerie, SDIS, SAMU, National Education, departmental council, communities), in the event of an accident of a radiological nature.
And this both at the EDF power plant itself, located on the right bank of the Seine 60 kilometers from Troyes (Aube) and 120 kilometers from Paris, and within the scope of the specific intervention plan, i.e. say for the population located within a 20 km radius around the electricity production site and its two reactors.
Everything was carefully scripted. This Thursday, November 23, the action will concentrate within the plant with the triggering of an internal emergency plan, a fictitious alert which will mobilize more than a hundred people. It will have no impact on the operation of the site thanks to the use of a simulator, an exact replica of the control room of a nuclear reactor, used for internal training in other circumstances.
A notification on your smartphone
In Troyes, a departmental operational center will be activated by the prefect of Aube, in conjunction with EDF, national nuclear experts and the government. Previously, Cécile Dindar will have triggered the alert, information and population protection measures planned by the authorities. This is when the FR-Alert system, which allows an entire population to receive security alerts on their smartphones, will be tested for the first time in the department,
“A population alert system in service since June 2022 on the national territory, which will allow Aubois and residents of neighboring departments (Seine-et-Marne, Yonne, Marne) to become familiar with the tool », Specifies the prefecture. A notification will thus be sent to the mobile phones of people in the danger zone, using relay antennas in the area.
Friday, November 24, the 2nd day will be devoted to operational exercises in the field. A class from the Mériot school, a village in the heart of the zone most exposed to a potential nuclear accident, will be evacuated to a decontamination workshop. A radioactivity detection area, and here also decontamination, will be evaluated in Nogent-Sur-Seine. Finally, a simulation of caring for a person in a radiological emergency will be carried out by the firefighters in Troyes, with all the specific conditions that such a pathology must generate.
The entire exercise will be accompanied by a test of crisis communication, internally as well as to the public and the media. A public information unit, made up of volunteers, will be established internally at the prefecture. In the event of an emergency, they would be the ones to answer calls from individuals affected by the disaster by telephone. If the authorities communicate widely on this operation by involving the population, it is also to “raise awareness, inform and acculturate all citizens of the department to the nuclear risk, and more generally to major risks, in order to contribute to the preparation of all for good reflexes in the event of an event.
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