Nuclear disasters of the world – Nuclear power is touted as one cleaner, safer and formative future of energy production.
We too are not opposed to this belief. But progress entails disasters, man-made disasters so to say. No civilization ever prospered or started to begin with, without other ill-fated men sacrificing for it, both knowingly an unknowingly but the cycle never stops because we don’t want it to.
Aside from affecting the humankind, if a nuclear power system fouls up, the nature is likely get affected more than the mortal beings.
Here under we will discuss about ten of such Nuclear disasters of the world that has ever happened in this century:
Nuclear disasters of the world –
1. Tokaimura, Japan 1999:
A herd of unprofessional workers tried to experiment by putting excessive uranium in a precipitation tank which fostered the disaster. Total 58 workers have died among which 2 died in the spot and a high level radiation quickly emanated from the accident area. Also, 21 civilians were exposed to high-density radiation within a thousand feet of the plant. In essence, they had to be evacuated.
2. Buenos Aires, Argentina 1984:
An operator was configuring a fuel plate which resulted him dying two days later. There was an outing of 3×10 fissions at the RA-2 facility which made the operator absorb 2000 rad of gamma and 1700 rad of neutron radiation. The people present outside the reactor room also absorbed doses starting from 35 rad to less than 1 rad.
3. Saint Laurent, France 1969:
In one of the gas cooled reactors, 50 kg of uranium started to melt on the 17th October, 1969. It was determined as level 4 accident on the INES and this day is deemed as the most serious nuclear disaster in French history.
4. SL-1 Experimental Power Station, Idaho USA 1961:
The USA army experimental nuclear power reactor suffered a steam explosion and meltdown which killed three operators on the spot. The reason was improper removal of the iron rod which was responsible for absorbing neutrons in the reactor core. This happened on 3rd January, 1961.
5. Goiania accident, Brazil 1987:
In the Brazilian state of Goais, on 13th September 1987, a radioactive contamination happened due to an old radiotherapy source being stolen from an deserted hospital in the city. It killed four people on the spot and 112,000 people were later examined for radioactive contamination.
6. Soviet Submarine K-19 Nuclear Accident:
Nikolai Vladimirovich Zateyev was the commander of Russian submarine K-19 which was conducting drills on the Northern Atlantic and there was a malfunction took place in Neuclear reactor’s coolant system. Zateyev didn’t accept the offers of help by the nearby American warships that he possibly wanting to destroy. He, in this bargain, forced his crew into a radioactive setting which they didn’t want to oblige to. Their weapons too were confiscated and thrown out. This disaster is called ‘Hiroshima’ of Russia.
7. The Windscale fire:
UK was in effort to develop their first nuclear bomb, for which they built two reactors Windscale Pile No. 1 and Windscale Pile No. 2. In October 1957, a fire erupted in the reactor of Pile No: 1 which caused casualties around 200-240 cases. The plant was engulfed in flames and liquid Carbon-di-oxide seeped out. The fire was later starved of Oxygen to be turned down.
8. Fukushima, Japan, level 7:
This Fukushima Daichi nuclear disaster occurred due to serious equipment failures. It resulted in Nuclear meltdown and let loose radioactive materials at the Fukushima which happened at the leg of Tohoku Tsunami on 11 March, 2011. It is deemed as the largest nuclear disaster after Chernobyl and the level was measured 7 at the INES.
9. Chernobyl, Ukraine, Level 7:
This is the worst powerplant disaster in history and measured level 7 on INES. It affected over 50,000 workers and destroyed properties worth 18 billion rubles. There has been an outbreak of cancer and birth defects that affected people even years later.
10. Lucens Reactor Partial Meltdown, Sweden:
There was no proper caution was taken in Sweden’s Lucens Reactor while dealing with nuclear materials. There was a fault in the coolant system which resulted in partial meltdown of the reactor core. The cavern was sealed and decontaminated later and no big casualties were reported.
These were the Nuclear disasters of the world – These adversities occurred opens our eyes to the fact that nuclear power can both be productive and destructive for humankind, one has to be extremely cautious while dealing with this because the collateral damage will be irreparable.
