Commentaries: Annex 6

(Art. 21 and 38)

Reporting on events and findings relating to safety

A. Event report and report on follow-up measures

Report	Contents	Periodicity
Event report	Report about events and findings, with the following content: a. classification based on the criteria aforementioned below, summary of events or finding and current state of knowledge; b. status of the installation prior to the event or at the time of the finding; c. course of the event and behaviour of the installation or type of finding; d. cause of event or origin of finding; e. immediate measures; f. enclosures.	Following each event or finding subject to reporting requirement
Report on follow-up measures	Report about events and findings, with the following content: a. follow-up measures; b. evaluation of relevance to safety; c. enclosures.	Following each event or finding subject to reporting requirement

B. Categorisation of events and findings

1. Classification:

Events and findings in terms of Article 21 paragraph 1 and Article 38 paragraph 3 letters a and c must be classified as follows:

Class	Criteria
General Emergency	An event that constitutes a serious current or projected radiological hazard to the environment and which mandatorily requires preparation for or the implementation of protective measures in the vicinity of nuclear installations.
Site Area Emergency	An event that could develop into a General Emergency or which constitutes a serious radiological hazard on the site area. A future (projected) radiological hazard to the environment that necessitates the deployment of the nuclear installation’s emergency team and external emergency services is possible.
Alert	An event that leads to a significant decrease in the level of protection for on-site personnel, or which could develop into an installation emergency or serious emergency and which, depending on the event, requires the deployment of all or part of the emergency team at the nuclear installation.
Reportable Event	An event or finding with significance for nuclear safety but which does not constitute an emergency (i.e. General Emergency, Site Area Emergency, or Alert).

2. Classification on the IAEA’s International Nuclear Event Scale (INES)

Events and findings in terms of Article 21 paragraph 1 and Article 38 paragraph 3 letters a and c must also be classified in accordance with the IAEA’s International Nuclear Event Scale (see INES User’s Manual 2008 Edition, IAEA, Vienna 2009).

Level	Descriptor	Nature of events
7	Major accident	– External release of a large fraction of the radioactive material in the form of a mixture of short-lived and long-lived radioactive fission products (more than 50,000 TBq iodine-131 equivalent).
6	Serious accident	– External release of radioactive material (5,000 to 50,000 TBq iodene-131 equivalent).
5	Accident with off-site risk	– External release of radioactive material (500 to 5,000 TBq iodene-131 equivalent). – Severe damage to reactor core with release of large quantities of radioactivity within the installation.
4	Accident without significant off‑site risk	– Release of radioactive material that is above the permitted dose limits that may result in a dose of several millisieverts for those persons most exposed. – Partial damage to reactor core due to mechanical effects or melting. – Irradiation of personnel probably serious enough to lead to an acute death.
3	Serious incident	– Release of radioactive substances above the permitted dose limits resulting in a dose to the critical group of the order of a few tenths of millisieverts. – On-site events resulting in doses to workers sufficient to cause acute health effects and/or an event resulting in a severe spread of contamination within the installation. – Incidents in which a further failure of safety systems could lead to accident conditions, or a situation in which safety systems would be unable to prevent an accident if certain initiators were to occur.
2	Incident	– Event or finding with significant failure in safety provisions but with sufficient defence in depth remaining to cope with additional failures. These include events where the actual failures would be rated at level 1, but which reveal significant additional organizational inadequacies or safety culture deficiencies. – An event resulting in a dose to a worker exceeding a statutory annual dose limit and/or an event which leads to the presence of significant quantities of radioactivity in the installation in areas not expected by design.
1	Anomaly	– Anomaly beyond the authorised regime. This may be due to equipment failure, human error or procedural inadequacies. Event or finding without direct safety consequences that reveal significant inadequacies in the organisational system or safety culture.
0	Deviation	Examples: a single random failure in a redundant system discovered during periodic inspections or tests, an automatic reactor trip proceeding normally, leakages within the operational limits; all examples with no significant correlation with safety culture.

3. Assessment of public interest

In the case of events and findings in terms of Article 21 paragraph 1 and Article 38 paragraph 3 letters a and c, and in the case of other events, an assessment must be made of whether there is a public interest.

Deadlines for notification and reporting:

	Nuclear Safety
	S Serious incident	A Installation incident	B Alert	M Event subject to reporting requirement	Ö Public event
Initial notification by telephone	Immediately	Immediately	Immediately	24 hours¹	Immediately²
Written confirmation of notification	As part of the communication with the ENSI emergency organisation	As part of the communication with the ENSI emergency organisation	As part of the communication with the ENSI emergency organisation	24 hours¹	Within 2 hours of receiving initial notification
Event report	36 hours	36 hours	10 days	30 days	Monthly report³
Report on follow-up measures	As required	As required	30 days	30 days	Monthly report³
¹ Within 24 hours between 8am and 5pm.
² If there is both a reporting requirements owing to the significance for nuclear safety and to a public interest, the shorter deadline applies.
³ If no monthly report is required, in quarterly or annual report.