International Nuclear Event Scale

The International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES) was introduced in 1990[1] by
the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in order to enable prompt communication of
safety significance information in case of nuclear accidents.

The scale is intended to be logarithmic, similar to the Richter scale that was used to describe the
comparative magnitude of earthquakes. Each increasing level represents an accident
approximately ten times more severe than the previous level. Compared to earthquakes, where
the event intensity can be quantitatively evaluated, the level of severity of a man-made disaster,
such as a nuclear accident, is more subject to interpretation. Because of the difficulty of
interpreting, the INES level of an incident is assigned well after the incident occurs. Therefore,
the scale has a very limited ability to assist in disaster-aid deployment.

Commonly, the organisation where the nuclear incident occurs assigns a first provisional INES
rating to an incident, after it is being reviewed and possibly revised by the designated national
radiation authority.
A number of criteria and indicators are defined to assure coherent reporting of nuclear events by
different official authorities. There are 7 levels on the INES scale; 3 incident-levels and 4
accident-levels. There is also a level 0.

7 – Major Accident

6 – Serious Accident

5 – Accident With Wider Consequences

4 – Accident With Local Consequences

3 – Serious Incident

2 – Incident

1 – Anomaly

0 – Deviation (No Safety Significance)

Contents
[hide]
• 1 Details
◦ 1.1 INES Level 7: Major accident
◦ 1.2 INES Level 6: Serious accident
◦ 1.3 INES Level 5: Accident with wider consequences
◦ 1.4 INES Level 4: Accident with local consequences
◦ 1.5 INES Level 3: Serious incident
◦ 1.6 INES Level 2: Incident
◦ 1.7 INES Level 1: Anomaly
◦ 1.8 INES Level 0: Deviation
■ 1.8.1 Out of Scale
• 2 See also
• 3 References
• 4 External links
[edit] Details
The level on the scale is determined by the highest of three scores: off-site effects, on-site effects,
and defence in depth degradation.

[edit] INES Level 7: Major accident

Impact on People and Environment

Major release of radio­active ­material with widespread health and environmental effects r­
equiring implementation of planned and extended ­countermeasures
Example:

• Chernobyl disaster, 26 April 1986. A power surge during a test procedure resulted in a
criticality accident, leading to a powerful steam explosion and fire that released a
significant fraction of core material into the environment, resulting in a death toll of 56 as
well as estimated 4,000 additional cancer fatalities among 600,000 people exposed to
elevated doses of radiation [2] and a permanent loss of large areas of habitable land. The
disaster is the only Level 7 Event that has ever occurred.
[edit] INES Level 6: Serious accident

Impact on People and Environment

Significant release of radioactive material likely to require implementation of planned
countermeasures.
Example

• Kyshtym disaster at Mayak, Soviet Union, 29 September 1957. A failed cooling system at
a military nuclear waste reprocessing facility caused a steam explosion that released
70-80 tons of highly radioactive material into the environment. Impact on local
population is not fully known.[3]
[edit] INES Level 5: Accident with wider consequences

Impact on People and Environment

Limited release of radioactive ­material likely to require i­mplementation of some planned­
countermeasures.
Several deaths from ­radiation.
Example: Windscale fire (United Kingdom), 10 October 1957. Annealing of graphite moderator
at a military air-cooled reactor caused the graphite and the metallic uranium fuel to catch fire,
releasing radioactive pile material as dust into the environment.

Impact on Radiological Barriers and Control

Severe damage to reactor core.
Release of large quantities of radioactive material within an installation with a high probability
of significant public exposure. This could arise from a major criticality accident or fire.
Example: Three Mile Island accident (United States), 28 March 1979. A combination of design
and operator errors caused a gradual loss of coolant, leading to a partial meltdown. Radioactive
gases were released into the atmosphere.

Other examples:

• First Chalk River Accident Chalk River, Ontario, Canada, 12 December 1952. Reactor
core damaged. Future U.S. President Jimmy Carter was part of the cleanup crew.
• Goiânia accident (Brazil), 13 September 1987. An unsecured caesium chloride radiation
source left in an abandoned hospital was recovered by squatters unaware of its nature and
sold at a scrapyard. 249 people were contaminated and 4 died.
[edit] INES Level 4: Accident with local consequences

Impact on People and the Environment

Minor release of radioactive material unlikely to result in implementation of planned
countermeasures other than local food controls.
At least one death from radiation.
Impact on Radiological Barriers and Control
Fuel melt or damage to fuel ­resulting in more than 0.1% release of core inventory.
Release of significant quantities of radioactive material within an installation with a high ­
probability of significant public exposure.
Examples:

• Sellafield (United Kingdom) - 5 incidents 1955 to 1979[4]

• SL-1 Experimental Power Station (United States) - 1961, reactor reached prompt
criticality, killing three operators.
• Saint-Laurent Nuclear Power Plant (France) - 1980, partial core meltdown.
• Buenos Aires (Argentina) - 1983, criticality accident during fuel rod rearrangement killed
one operator and injured 2 others.
• Jaslovské Bohunice (Czechoslovakia) - 1977, contamination of reactor building.
• Tokaimura nuclear accident (Japan) - 1999, three inexperienced operators at a
reprocessing facility caused a criticality accident; two of them died.
[edit] INES Level 3: Serious incident

Impact on People and Environment

Exposure in excess of ten times the statutory annual limit for workers.
Non-lethal deterministic health effect (e.g., burns) from radiation.
Impact on Radiological Barriers and Control
Exposure rates of more than 1 Sv/h in an operating area.
Severe contamination in an area not expected by design, with a low probability of ­significant
public exposure.
Impact on Defence-in-Depth
Near accident at a nuclear power plant with no safety provisions remaining.
Lost or stolen highly radioactive sealed source.
Misdelivered highly radioactive sealed source without adequate procedures in place to handle it.
Examples:

• THORP plant Sellafield (United Kingdom) - 2005.

• Paks Nuclear Power Plant (fuel rod damage in cleaning tank) (Hungary) - 2003.
• Vandellos Nuclear Power Plant, Spain (A big fire destroyed many control systems, but the
reactor could be stopped) - 1989.
[edit] INES Level 2: Incident

Impact on People and Environment

Exposure of a member of the public in excess of 10 mSv.
Exposure of a worker in excess of the statutory annual limits.
Impact on Radiological Barriers and Control
Radiation levels in an operating area of more than 50 mSv/h.
Significant contamination within the facility into an area not expected by design.
Impact on Defence-in-Depth
Significant failures in safety ­provisions but with no actual ­consequences.
Found highly radioactive sealed orphan source, device or transport package with safety
provisions intact.
Inadequate packaging of a highly radioactive sealed source.
Examples:

• Ascó Nuclear Power Plant, (Catalonia, Spain) April 2008; radioactive contamination
• Forsmark Nuclear Power Plant (Sweden); backup generator failure.
[edit] INES Level 1: Anomaly

Impact on Defence-in-Depth
Overexposure of a member of the public in excess of statutory ­annual limits.
Minor problems with safety components with significant defence-in-depth remaining.
Low activity lost or stolen radioactive source, device or transport package.
(Arrangements for reporting minor events to the public differ from country to country. It is
difficult to ensure precise consistency in rating events between INES Level-1 and Below scale/
Level-0)

Examples:

• Gravelines (Nord, France), 8 August 2009; during the annual fuel bundle exchange in
reactor #1, a fuel bundle snagged on to the internal structure. Operations were stopped,
the reactor building was evacuated and isolated in accordance with operating procedures.
[5]
• TNPC (Drôme, France), July 2008; leak of 6000 litres of water containing 75 kg of
Uranium into the environment.
[edit] INES Level 0: Deviation

No safety significance.

Examples:

• 4 June 2008: Krško, Slovenia: Leakage from the primary cooling circuit[6].
• 17 December 2006, Atucha, Argentina: Reactor shutdown due to Tritium increase in
reactor compartment [7].
• 13 February 2006: Fire in Nuclear Waste Volume Reduction Facilities of the Japanese
Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) in Tokaimura [8].
[edit] Out of Scale

There are also events of no safety relevance, characterized as "out of scale".

Examples:
 • 17 November 2002, Natural Uranium Oxide Fuel Plant at the Nuclear Fuel Complex in
Hyderabad, India: A chemical explosion at a fuel fabrication facility[9]
• 4 November 1999: H.B. Robinson, United States: A Tornado sighting within the protected
area of the NPP[10].
• 15 April 1999: San Onofre, United States: Discovery of suspicious item in nuclear power
plant[10]
[edit] See also
• Nuclear meltdown
◦ Core damage frequency
◦ Fuel element failure
◦ Loss of coolant accident
• Nuclear power
• Nuclear power debate
• Nuclear and radiation accidents
◦ Lists of nuclear disasters and radioactive incidents
◦ List of civilian nuclear accidents
◦ List of civilian radiation accidents
◦ List of military nuclear accidents
■ United States military nuclear incident terminology
• List of nuclear reactors
• Nuclear safety
• Radioactive contamination
• Radioactive waste
[edit] References
• INES Scale - International Nuclear and Radiological Event ScalePDF
1. ^ "Event scale revised for further clarity". World-nuclear-news.org. 2008-10-06. http://
www.world-nuclear-news.org/
RS_Event_scale_revised_for_further_clarity_0510081.html. Retrieved 2010-09-13.
2. ^ "IAEA Report". In Focus: Chernobyl. Archived from the original on 2007-12-17.
http://web.archive.org/web/20071217112720/http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Focus/
Chernobyl/index.shtml. Retrieved 2006-03-29.
3. ^ http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Factsheets/English/ines.pdf
4. ^ G A M Webb et al. (March 2006). "Classification of events with an off-site radiological
impact at the Sellafield site between 1950 and 2000, using the International Nuclear
Event Scale". Journal of Radiological Protection 26 (1): 33. doi:
10.1088/0952-4746/26/1/002. PMID 16522943. http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/
0952-4746/26/1/002.
5. ^ (AFP) – 10 août 2009. "AFP: Incident "significatif" à la centrale nucléaire de
Gravelines, dans le Nord". Google.com. http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/
ALeqM5jDlQI2MpwzTvWT166NetwyFGPyiA. Retrieved 2010-09-13.
6. ^ News | Slovenian Nuclear Safety Administration
7. ^ http://200.0.198.11/comunicados/18_12_2006.pdf (Spanish)
 8. ^ http://www.jaea.go.jp/02/press2005/p06021301/index.html (Japanese)
9. ^ http://www.aerb.gov.in/t/annrpt/2002/chapter8.pdf
10. ^ a b NRC: SECY-01-0071 - Expanded NRC Participation in the Use of the International
Nuclear Event Scale
[edit] External links
• Nuclear Events Web-based System (NEWS), IAEA
• International Nuclear Event Scale factsheet, IAEA
• International Nuclear Event Scale, User's manual, IAEA, 2001
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Nuclear_Event_Scale"
Categories: Nuclear accidents | Civilian nuclear power accidents | Nuclear safety | Hazard scales