Improvement of Emergency Information Clearinghouse (ECHO) for nuclear emergency management

Watanabe, Fumitaka 

The JCO criticality accident in 1999 revealed that parties concerned had no effective tools to share important information about the accident with each other and such a situation caused unnecessary confusion and unease in society. Based on lessons learned from the accident, the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) developed the Emergency Information Clearinghouse (ECHO) in 2002. ECHO is in operation as an information tool on a dedicated-line network for nuclear emergency response. ECHO connects nationwide 22 off-site centers, central government emergency operations centers, and the Nuclear Emergency Assistant and Training Center (NEAT) of JAEA. Various points to be improved have been suggested through the practical use in nuclear emergency drills. ECHO has become an efficient information sharing tool through several improvements. The system enables the parties separately located to share proper information in a timely manner and minimize the load of managing a large amount of information.