The army's Home Front Command and Israel Atomic EnergyCommission plan to hold a large scale exercise this week to simulate a missile attack on the Dimona nuclear reactor in the Negev. Called Fernando, the drill will simulate a nuclear meltdown similar to that in 1959 in the San Fernando Valley near Los Angeles which took workers over a month until they were able to control the reactor, and more than 50 years to clean up the contamination. Israel also studied the recent crisis at the Fukushima site in Japan following the earthquake there earlier this year. A former top official at the Israeli reactor warned in March that the reactor is ageing and if the reactor sustains damage its cooling system could be affected.