Safety Exercise at Bushehr Nuclear Plant a “Success”

Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization has confirmed it carried out a successful emergency response exercise at Bushehr’s nuclear power station on March 1.

Head of Iran’s Civil Defense Organization, Brigadier General Qholamreza Jalali, told the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting that the exercise was carried out to assess how quickly the station’s systems and personnel could respond to a possible break in circuits that could lead to radiation leakage. The defense organization said the power plant had been turned off for a period of two months, starting from 11pm on March 1, to allow for the safety exercise to take place.

According to Jalali, those in charge of running the plant followed strict instructions for emergency situations, including the evacuation of all personnel, apart from those assigned with specific duties in an emergency situation. It also required the evacuation of the nearby residential campus.

The Iranian Civil Defense Organization had previously performed an identical operation in Markazi and Isfahan provinces. Similar practice operations had also taken place inside Bushehr Nuclear Plant, but the recent exercise had been expanded to include locations around the city of Bushehr.

Brigadier General Jalali, senior experts and officials from the Bushehr Nuclear Plant, and Bushehr province government officials were all present during the safety drill, according to the Persian Gulf Website.

The official website of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran published a statement by the head of the defense organization’s management crisis committee, Asqar Zare-an, who said, “taking into consideration the aims of the exercise, and in direct liaison with International Atomic Energy Organization, the maneuver was successful.’”

The site also announced that the Bushehr nuclear plant would be temporarily closed “in order to ensure it was ready for use at the peak of the country’s energy consumption in mid-summer.”

Read the original article in Persian