22nd Meeting of the National Permanent Committee for Radiological and Nuclear Emergency Response

22nd Meeting of the National Permanent Committee for Radiological and Nuclear Emergency Response

The NRRC held the 22nd meeting of the National Permanent Committee for Radiological and Nuclear Emergency Response on April 11, 2021, corresponding to 29 Sha'ban 1442 AH, with the participation of national entities that are members of the committee. The meeting included a presentation o​n the NRRC's efforts in simulating international nuclear incidents from nuclear facilities, the consequences of such incidents, and the proactive measures taken to mitigate these effects. The session also highlighted Saudi Arabia's participation in IAEA exercises and scenarios designed to test the arrangements and procedures for nuclear incident reporting, and reviewed the approaches for assessing the readiness of national entities to respond to radiological and nuclear incidents.

Additionally, the NRRC concluded on Thursday, April 8, 2021, a remote training course organized in collaboration with the IAEA, titled "Initial Response to Radiological Emergencies." The course featured participation from several IAEA international experts in nuclear and radiological emergency response and included over sixty trainees from various national entities involved in the National Plan for Radiological and Nuclear Emergency Response. The five-day course covered more than twenty-five topics related to national radiological emergency response, including risk assessment, the establishment of security and safety zones around incident sites, first responders' protection, public safety guidelines, and other related subjects. Experts from the course also explained the use of guideline documents that regulate field response to radiological emergencies and discussed these with participants, developing scenarios to simulate responses to radiological incidents.

Since its establishment, the NRRC has been actively developing national capabilities for preparing and responding to radiological and nuclear emergencies through its various programs. The NRRC has established a Nuclear and Radiological Emergency Operations Center, equipped to receive both national and international notifications, with technical capabilities to track and simulate the movement of radioactive materials from transboundary nuclear incidents and assess their impact on the Kingdom, thus enabling the development of proactive measures to mitigate these impacts. The NRRC also oversees the continuous environmental radiation monitoring and early warning network, which currently consists of 140 monitoring stations across the Kingdom, with plans to expand it by adding another 100 stations distributed throughout all regions of the Kingdom.​