Brno - Hundreds of firemen, police, rescuers, meteorologists, volunteers and officials will 26-28 November practice for an accident at the ČEZ-run Dukovany nuclear station in south Moravia.

The most extensive drill in the country's history, called Zóna 2008 and designed by the Interior Ministry and the State Office for Nuclear Safety, will start on Wednesday morning. The power plant's control centre will receive a report of a major leak of radiation reaching outside the plant's safety zone.

Within seconds, the operators will have to notify the authorities: Sirens will go off in municipalities up to 20 km away from the station; a national crisis management team will meet; and Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek will declare a state of emergency.

Most of the 2,000 staff currently present at the Dukovany power plant will hide in one of the seven radiation-proof shelters on the site, says the facility's spokesman, Petr Spilka.

An unusual school trip

An evacuation drill for residents will take place the next day in Vémyslice, Kubšice, Mohelno and Kožichovice. Vémyslice, for example, will take its children for an unusual school trip.

"We won't evacuate the whole village, of course. Only pupils of two selected classes will be taken to an evacuation centre at Brno University of Technology," says Milan Doubek, mayor of Vémyslice.

"It will be our first big drill ever. People are no longer aware of the potential nuclear accident. They are only reminded once in three years when they are handed iodine pills, says Doubek.

Tents and decontamination points will be set up outside Kubšice and Kožovice. The residents will not have to participate directly, but selected vehicles will be decontaminated. The villages will be flooded with firemen, police, soldiers and journalists.

Prague gets involved

The drill, which will end on Friday 28 November, will be unique in its scope, mainly because of the participation of ministries and other national government institutions.

"Drills at Temelín in 2002 and at Dukovany in 2004 were of a regional character," says fire brigade spokesman Petr Kopáček. The nuclear stations themselves run small drills every year and larger drills every three years.

"The probability that such an accident could really take place is one to 10 million," says Dukovany spokesman Spilka, adding that several systems would have to fail at the same time in an "unbelievable coincidence".

Dukovany is ranked among the 10 percent of the safest nuclear power plants in the world.