Subscribe options

Select your newsletters:

Please enter your email address:

@

Your email address will only be used for the purpose of sending you the ITER Organization publication(s) that you have requested. ITER Organization will not transfer your email address or other personal data to any other party or use it for commercial purposes.

If you change your mind, you can easily unsubscribe by clicking the unsubscribe option at the bottom of an email you've received from ITER Organization.

For more information, see our Privacy policy.

News & Media

Latest ITER Newsline

  • Test facility | How do electronics react to magnetic fields?

    A tokamak is basically a magnetic cage designed to confine, shape and control the super-hot plasmas that make fusion reactions possible. Inside the ITER Tokamak [...]

    Read more

  • ITER Robots | No two alike

    More than 500 students took part in the latest ITER Robots challenge. Working from the same instructions and technical specifications, they had worked in teams [...]

    Read more

  • Data archiving | Operating in quasi real time

    To accommodate the first real-time system integrated with the ITER control system, new components of the data archiving system have been deployed. Data archivi [...]

    Read more

  • Repairs | Setting the stage for a critical task

    Like in a game of musical chairs—albeit in slow motion and at a massive scale—components in the Assembly Hall are being transferred from one location to another [...]

    Read more

  • Image of the week | There is life on Planet ITER

    Dated April 2023, this new image of the ITER "planet" places the construction site squarely in the middle. One kilometre long, 400 metres wide, the IT [...]

    Read more

Of Interest

See archived entries

On site

Safety has no holiday

Don your helmet, put on safety goggles and gloves, step into your steel-capped work boots, and slip into a bright yellow vest—these are basic safety rules for anyone going onto the ITER worksite. But safety is so much more.

How do you test the equipment for heavy load lifting? Workers refresh their knowledge about different types of ropes, shackles and hooks. (Click to view larger version...)
How do you test the equipment for heavy load lifting? Workers refresh their knowledge about different types of ropes, shackles and hooks.
"Spot the seven mistakes"—what sounds like a game is serious business. Several workers in their bright work gear look at a section of scaffolding and start counting potential safety hazards. There is a broken plank at the top level, the ladder is missing a step, and a piece of safety railing hangs loose. Other stands offer the opportunity to prove one's knowledge in handling oil spills, safely managing the transfer of heavy loads, or using first aid equipment.

For four days, the fair-like atmosphere of Safety Week took over one end of a large car park at ITER. Once every year, the 850 workers of the French-Spanish consortium VFR (comprising French companies VINCI, Razel-Bec, Dodin Campenon Bernard, Campenon Bernard Sud-Est, GTM Sud and Chantiers Modernes Sud, and the Spanish firm Ferrovial Agroman) refresh their knowledge about safety rules and regulations at the workplace—a tradition adopted from VINCI, which organizes the event at all its branches worldwide.

Director-General Bernard Bigot stresses the importance of respecting safety rules at the workplace in his exchange with workers attending Safety Week. (Click to view larger version...)
Director-General Bernard Bigot stresses the importance of respecting safety rules at the workplace in his exchange with workers attending Safety Week.
Safety at the workplace is also an important issue for ITER Director-General Bernard Bigot. Before touring the stands with the safety training exercises, he told the workers: "We are developing an energy source that is safe and environmentally friendly. Demonstrating that we are also serious about safety at the work place will give further credence to our message." While we have experienced some safety incidents resulting in injuries, so far ITER has had no fatal accident on the construction site due to unsafe work practices. "I want us to keep up this record until the completion of the ITER Project."

"Safety is the only thing that has no holiday," says Prabhat Kumar, Deputy to the Site Construction Director at ITER, ahead of an award ceremony for the contractors with the best safety record that happens to coincide with Safety Week. Winning contractors for the second quarter of 2018 are the French companies SEMA (stainless steel waterproofing in the Tokamak Building) and Métal Concept (building of steel structures in the cryoplant). According to Kumar, the safety awards serve as an additional incentive for all companies to improve their health and safety performance.


return to the latest published articles