HAEA joined the INEX-5 international nuclear emergency preparedness exercise

The OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) has been developing international exercises called INEX since 1993. The latest in the series, the INEX 5, was an exercise on notification, communication and interfaces related to catastrophic events involving radiation or radiological materials. The exercise – because of its goal - was organized regionally, to provide basis for enhancing national emergency management arrangements, as well as international.

The main goals of INEX 5 are to allow participating countries to test or identify elements for improving their arrangements for notification, communication and interfaces related to catastrophic events involving radiation or radiological materials, and to exchange experience with other countries that have conducted and evaluated an INEX 5 exercise. To meet these goals, the following common key objectives have been set:

-        Test and investigate the adequacy of national arrangements (including national coordination and communication), and where appropriate international arrangements for notification, communication and obtaining and managing international resource support to respond to a severe contamination event;

-        Review and share information on approaches to notification and communication processes in order to identify good practice and to allow review and improvement of local, national and international arrangements;

-        Identify key areas and approaches to international coordination and communication in order to provide a basis for improvements in international emergency management systems.

The exercise was completeled professionally, it has proven that the flow of information was smooth and the communication on national and international level worked well. Report about the lessons learnt is going to be sent to the OECD NEA.