Emergency evacuation exercise carried out at Kalpakkam n-facilities

The Kalpakkam centre of Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) on Friday carried out site emergency exercise without any warning to test the preparedness of the laid out plan, said a statement.

The DAE has different units at Kalpakkam like the Madras Atomic Power Station (MAPS), Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research, Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (under construction), Bhabha Atomic Research Centre facilities, Fast Reactor Fuel Cycle Facility and others.

The surprise exercise was conducted as laid down in the Emergency Manual of Kalpakkam DAE Centre and demonstrated the following major response actions:

Sheltering of site personnel in their respective units.

Mock decontamination of 'injured' person

Administration of Chocolates (notionally in place of Stable iodine tablets) to the personnel as a protective action.

Evacuation of all non-essential personnel out of the site.

Mock decontamination of a contaminated vehicle within the site.

"The exercise involved participation of more than 8000 personnel in the site and around 6,000 personnel were evacuated by departmental buses while the remaining persons evacuated by their own vehicles," said a statement issued by R. Satyanarayana, Station Director, MAPS and Site Emergency Director, Kalpakkam DAE Centre.

The evacuation of site personnel was completed within a time span of 90 minutes. The entire site emergency exercise was completed within 120 minutes.

--IANS

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