The head of the world’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, has warned that the organisation is so under-funded that it would have difficulty responding to a nuclear accident. In an unusual and angry appeal, Mohamed ElBaradei also claimed that the IAEA no longer had reliable equipment to detect covert nuclear activity, nor did it have consistent funding for its efforts to combat nuclear smuggling. Dr ElBaradei made his remarks to the IAEA’s board of governors, delegates from national governments, on June 15 but the comments were only made public yesterday. ‘If an accident were to happen tomorrow, we would be hard pressed to carry out core functions. This is a reality,’ he said. In the event of an accident like the Chernobyl disaster of 1986, the IAEA’s incident and emergency centre is supposed to step in immediately, sending technicians to help to limit the spread of radiation, advise on the treatment of casualties and coordinate the international response. Dr ElBaradei added that the IAEA’s ‘safeguards function is being eroded over time’, noting that the organisation was using an unreliable 28-year-old instrument to carry out environmental sampling. That sampling is carried out in and […]