Читать книгу Industrial and Medical Nuclear Accidents - Jean-Claude Amiard - Страница 28

For a long time, public information on radioactive risk has been deficient and even biased, not only in the military field but also in civilian applications of atomic energy. Thus, most of the accidents that occurred in the 1950s and 1960s were kept secret. It was only after the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, and especially the Chernobyl accident in 1986, that public information became more free and taken seriously. The IAEA has mainly developed its communication policy since 1990.

In France, public information on nuclear events is provided by the ASN, created only in 2006. Level 0 incidents, about a thousand per year, are not systematically made public. They may be published if they are of particular media interest. All incidents classified at level 1 and above are systematically reported on the ASN website. Annually, there are approximately a hundred level 1 cases in France. Information on incidents at level 2 and above are published and, in addition, brought to the attention of journalists through press releases and telephone contact. In France, they only represent a few cases per year.

A follow-up of nuclear incidents was set up in 2001 by the CEPN and the group Personnes Compétentes de la Société Française de Radioprotection (SFRP), in cooperation with the IRSN and INRS. It is the RELIR system (http://relir.cepn.asso.fr/) that brings together the most interesting events for worker training and incident prevention. The selected incidents are presented in the form of descriptive sheets guaranteeing the anonymity of the exposed persons, companies and materials involved.