Commission progress report on nuclear stress tests – emergency plans ignored

Press release - November 23, 2011
The European Commission is tomorrow expected to publish a progress report on nuclear power station stress tests. The latest publicly available data reveals that the tests have entirely ignored evacuation plans for towns and cities near nuclear plants. Most have not looked at multiple reactor failure, which is what happened at Fukushima, or the threat from crashes by large aircraft.

Greenpeace EU nuclear policy adviser Jan Haverkamp said: “The Japanese
nuclear disaster scared Europe into probing its own plants for weaknesses,
though now it seems these tests contain major gaps. Emergency plans are
one. The Japanese authorities were ill prepared to evacuate around
Fukushima. Europe should be carrying out an in depth scrutiny of its own
plans.”

The European Union has 19 nuclear power stations within 30 kilometres of
towns and cities of 100,000 or more inhabitants.

An interactive Google map with test results for every EU nuclear power
station is available here.

To date, most regulators have failed to disclose final operator reports to
the public, despite being urged to do so by the European Nuclear Safety
Regulators Group, the group that designed the stress tests.

Ends

Contacts
Greenpeace EU nuclear policy adviser Jan Haverkamp +32 4777 90416

Greenpeace EU press officer Jack Hunter +32 476988584


For breaking news and comment on EU affairs: www.twitter.com/GreenpeaceEU

Greenpeace is an independent global campaigning organisation that acts to
change attitudes and behaviour, to protect and conserve the environment and
to promote peace. Greenpeace does not accept donations from governments,
the EU, businesses or political parties.

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