Several nuclear power plants around the world still do not have adequate contingency plans in place for severe accidents, more than two years after the Fukushima disaster in Japan, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said.
The Vienna-based international nuclear watchdog did not spell out in its annual Nuclear Safety Review which power plants it had found lacking, and an IAEA spokesman on Monday could not provide such details.
At one power plant inspected under IAEA auspices, a severe accident plan is to be implemented only next year and in a second one there were guidelines, but staff were not trained to use them, the report said.
In other power plants “programmes did not address the occurrence of accidents at several units simultaneously,” the IAEA said.
One of the facilities that the IAEA referred to was apparently the Kozloduy Nuclear Power Plant in Bulgaria, which has no guidelines to manage serious accidents occurring in spent fuel ponds, according to an IAEA press statement from December.
The new report used the same language to cite this specific problem, without naming Kozloduy.
The 2011 accident at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station caused meltdowns in three of its six reactors and affected its fuel storage ponds.
Overall, the IAEA commended the nuclear industry around the world for conducting stress tests and strengthening safety measures in the wake of Fukushima.