Flamanville power station, illustration.

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Alexis MORIN / SIPA

A surprise exercise took place on the night of January 11 to 12 at the Flamanville nuclear power plant (Manche).

The Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) revealed on Monday that the current organization of the site had not made it possible "to respond effectively and quickly to an emergency situation similar to the scenario played during the inspection".

The nuclear gendarme detailed in a "follow-up letter" available on the Internet all the shortcomings noted in mid-January.

The emergency exercise carried out unexpectedly predicted heavy snowfall degrading the reactor cooling systems and partially isolating the site.

Two hours to notify the authorities

According to this scenario, an internal emergency plan had been triggered at 11:31 p.m.

But the prefecture and the local ASN penalty call were not notified until 1:25 and 1:43, respectively.

A "late warning period from the authorities" deplored by the inspectors.

The authorities' alert "without delay" is however "essential" to protect the population, underlined Valérie Nouvel, DVD vice-president of the departmental council of La Manche who chairs the local information commission of the central, during a meeting Thursday in Saint-Lô.

"Incomplete information"

ASN also criticizes the management officer of the emergency organization for having "provided incomplete information to the authorities".

The latter had not been informed of an "increase in radioactivity detected by an environmental monitoring beacon".

In addition, the operations manager at the command post "did not know how to connect to the collaborative crisis information system" and he waited "nearly two hours after the triggering of the alert" to begin to be able to use this. system.

A team member does not know the code of an anti-theft device

Investigators also noted a lack of practicality and knowledge of "portable computer stations".

During the exercise, a team member was thus unable to take one of the devices to a crisis meeting because he did not know the code of the anti-theft protection cable.

He therefore had to “take handwritten notes and transcribe them electronically”.

The scenario set up at Flamanville is reminiscent of the situation with which the La Hague nuclear plant (Manche) had been confronted in 2013. The installation was cut off from the world for two days because of the snow before that the army does not clear the road.

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