{"id":870531,"date":"2026-08-27T18:30:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T18:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/870531\/"},"modified":"2026-08-27T18:30:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T18:30:13","slug":"aukus-emergency-plan-for-nuclear-submarine-accident-released","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/870531\/","title":{"rendered":"AUKUS: Emergency plan for nuclear submarine accident released"},"content":{"rendered":"

Residents in Perth <\/a>could be issued iodine tablets or warned to shelter under an emergency plan that would be triggered if radiation escaped from an AUKUS nuclear submarine<\/a>.<\/p>\n

They are some of the potential responses outlined by West Australian authorities to tackle any leak of radioactive iodine or gamma radiation from a nuclear-powered warship of submarine.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A Virginia-class attack submarine before its christening in 2021. The ones Australia is buying as part of the AUKUS deal will be secondhand.\u00a0AP<\/p>\n

The state hazard plan, published in August, comes ahead of the first US and British submarine deployments through the naval base, HMAS Stirling, south of Perth, in 2027.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Any emergency response to a nuclear accident would include a raft of national and state civilian and military agencies, but the coordinating body would be the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA).\u00a0 <\/p>\n

The document warns leaking radiation could potentially contaminate vegetables grown at gardens or the milk from cows grazing in areas several kilometres downwind.<\/p>\n

While it mainly examines potential impacts of radioactive material leaking from a reactor core, it also considers the far more serious scenario of a disastrous reactor meltdown, which has a risk of one-in-ten million per vessel, every year.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The naval base at HMAS Stirling in WA will be a base for nuclear submarines.\u00a0Trevor Collens<\/p>\n

Despite the extremely low likelihood, health department officials have drawn up plans to supply iodine tablets to hospitals in Perth and surrounding areas to treat affected residents, if required.<\/p>\n

In an emergency guide<\/a>, ARPANSA says consuming potassium iodide \u2013 or KI pills \u2013 is a \u201cshort-term\u201d measure that blocks radioactive iodine from being absorbed by the thyroid.<\/p>\n

The hazard plan also included details of the precautions taken in the design of all nuclear reactors fitted to warships and submarines to prevent leakage of radioactive material.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reactor core in (nuclear-powered warships) is so designed that it is physically impossible for it to explode,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n

Safety concerns about nuclear-powered submarines deployed at West Australian bases were raised by the crowd-funded AUKUS public inquiry in June when it held hearings in the state.<\/p>\n

Colin Hughes, the former head of Public Health in Perth, told the inquiry that governments had failed to adequately prepare for the possibility of a nuclear accident involving visiting or serviced submarines.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is actually no nuclear safety plan for Rockingham, Kwinana, or the people of Fremantle and Perth in the case of a major nuclear catastrophe,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

This week WA Energy Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson, speaking with the ABC, played down the risk of a major accident. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt is extremely unlikely that any adverse event will occur. No adverse event has ever occurred,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Residents in Perth could be issued iodine tablets or warned to shelter under an emergency plan that would…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":870532,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-870531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=870531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870531\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/870532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=870531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=870531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=870531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}