The criticality accident in Sarov

On 17 June 1997 a physicist working as a senior technician at the Nuclear Centre, Sarov, in the Russian Federation, was severely exposed as a result of a criticality accident with an assembly of high enriched uranium. The exposure, which caused a high neutron radiation dose, led to death within three days despite prompt medical attention. The Russian authorities requested urgent assistance from the IAEA under the terms of the 1986 Convention on Assistance in the Case of a Nuclear Accident or Radiological Emergency to provide the Clinical Department of the Institute of Biophysics of the Ministry of Health in Moscow with specialized medicines and other diagnostical supplies in the attempt to save the patient's life. Information on the circumstances of the accident and the medical management of the patient was provided to the IAEA. This is the first of two criticality accidents (the other being the accident at Tokaimura in Japan in 1999) on which the IAEA has now issued reports, and it is intended that the reports will contribute to preventing such accidents in the future