Earthquake and tsunami in Japan

AREVA provides support to Japan

April 19

TEPCO has accepted the solution proposed by AREVA to treat most of the contaminated water from the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant. The contaminated water must be treated rapidly as it is preventing TEPCO from repairing the power plant’s power supply and cooling systems.

April 11

To increase its technical support to Japan, AREVA send height specialized experts to join the team already in place in Tokyo. They will examine what help can be provided to help the Japanese power company Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO).

March 30

Five AREVA experts are flying to Japan to provide assistance to the operator of the Fukushima nuclear power plant consider how best to help TEPCO. They are experts in radioactive effluent treatment and in the management of used storage pools.

March 21

German and American AREVA subsidiaries are also mobilized. An airplane left from Germany with hazmat masks and radioactivity measurement equipment, attesting the widespread mobilization of the group’s teams.

March 18

• A cargo aircraft specially chartered by AREVA took off in the evening from Charles de Gaulle airport, Paris for Tokyo, carrying on board:11,000 hazmat suits, 200 self-contained breathing apparatuses, 85 metric tons of boric acid provided by EDF.
• Another aircraft delivered 40,000 gloves. It also carried 10 tons of boric acid, made available by EDF.

March 17

• AREVA also delivered 3,000 activated charcoal protective masks
• A radiation protection expert from AREVA’s MELOX site who speaks Japanese left for Japan on March 17th. He will strengthen the AREVA local office, which provides liaison with Tepco and the Embassy of France in Japan.
• French rescue workers left for Japan with radioactivity measurement equipment provided by Canberra, an AREVA subsidiary specializing in the manufacture of nuclear measurement and detection equipment.
  Equipment that was available in AREVA’s Tokyo offices had already been provided to Japanese safety teams.

March 14

AREVA has decided to provide emergency aid in the form of a donation of one million euros, on Monday 14th, 2011. The Red Cross was chosen as the vehicle for this aid, with its 86 medical teams and nearly 600 workers at the scene.

All AREVA employees present in the country are safe

• Around one hundred of AREVA employees were in Japan; eighteen of them, originating from France, the United States and Germany, were working in an area close to the center of the earthquake.
  The information unit established at the AREVA group’s headquarters in Paris, with team members in Erlangen and Washington, were quickly notified that these colleagues were all safe and out of danger, as well as the expatriates and the Japanese employees for the group working in Tokyo.
• Our German teams (AREVA NDE Solutions (IntelligNDT) have been mobilized to Frankfurt as of Sunday. These teams performed a unit shutdown operation on reactor number 4 of the Fukushima I plant, where the accident resulting from the earthquake took place. As of Friday evening, they had been provided shelter 40 kilometers from the power station.
• Following the recommendations of the French Embassy in Japan, AREVA Japan management proposed that the group’s employees and their families would be temporarily relocate to the Kyushu region in south Japan if they wish. This proposition was imparted to all of our colleagues (expatriate and local) for all entities present in Japan.