China is setting up a national nuclear emergency response task force to handle possible accidents and take part in overseas operations, a senior official overseeing the nation's nuclear power industry said.

Xu Dazhe, head of the China Atomic Energy Authority, said the task force will comprise 320 professionals and will work with the existing 25 nuclear emergency teams to conduct search and rescue operations after a nuclear accident. The 25 teams have more than 1,300 personnel.

Xu said China has eight technical support centers and three training bases involved in nuclear emergency response efforts. In addition to increasing staffing levels, the country is drafting laws on nuclear energy and nuclear security.

China, which began building its first nuclear power station in 1985, has 30 reactors in operation with an installed capacity of 28.3 gigawatts. Twenty-four more are being built, the China Atomic Energy Authority said.

At present, nuclear power accounts for about 2 percent of the country's electricity generation, the China Electricity Council said.

Xu said that last year eight reactors became operational and work started on six new ones. The government is considering building offshore nuclear power plants, but only under completely safe conditions, Xu said, adding that a "careful and scientific" feasibility review will be carried out before a decision is made.

Since China established its nuclear industry in the 1950s, the government has attached great importance to nuclear safety and emergency response.

In 1991 the State Council set up a national committee to handle any nuclear emergency. In 1997 the government issued a national nuclear emergency plan and has since revised it several times. The latest version was issued in June 2013.

National nuclear emergency response drills were organized in 2009 and last year, and a third will be staged soon, Xu said.

Liu Senlin, vice president of the China Institute of Atomic Energy, said the country has at least 300 nuclear and radioactive monitoring vehicles and has a full-scale emergency detection system.

"Every provincial-level region now has its own detection vehicles. In addition, at least four aerial monitoring systems are being used by several ministries," he said, adding that China uses the most advanced nuclear and radioactive monitoring technologies.

Wang Yiren, deputy head of the China Atomic Energy Authority, said his office has made the draft of a nuclear security regulation and submitted it to the State Council for approval. Not a single gram of nuclear fuel or any piece of reactor component has ever disappeared in China, giving the country a perfect nuclear security record, he said.

China now has two disposal repositories dealing with low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste and will build three new ones in coastal regions that have many nuclear power stations, Wang said, adding that an underground laboratory to handle high-level radioactive waste will be built soon.

zhaolei@chinadaily.com.cn