According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (INAEA), a nuclear or radiation accident is defined as “An event that has significant consequences for people, the environment, or an object. Examples include lethal effects to individuals, large releases of radioactivity to the environment, or melting of a reactor core. " Whether accidental or planned, whatever the form and cause, a nuclear accident is a catastrophe that affects people physically, mentally, emotionally, economically and genetically, altering and damaging genes in order to cause serious effects on future generations.
10. Three Mile Island - March 28, 1979
The Three Mile Island accident occurred at a level 5 nuclear power plant. On March 28, 1979, in the morning hours at a nuclear power plant, there was a malfunction. During the accident, about 50% of the reactor core melted down, after which the power unit was never rebuilt. The premises of the nuclear power plant were subjected to significant radioactive contamination, but the radiation consequences for the environment turned out to be insignificant. This nuclear accident released 13 million curies of radioactive gases into the atmosphere and caused a loss of US $ 2,400. Ten court cases were also filed with various authorities regarding the accident and took 15 long years to recover. Fortunately, there were no casualties or injuries.
9. Radioactive contamination in Goiânia - September 13, 1987
More than 240 people were exposed to radiation. The owner of a landfill dealer in Goiânia found a part from a radiotherapy machine that had been stolen and thrown away by looters. He brought the find home to show everyone this interesting thing - a powder glowing with blue light. Small fragments of the source were taken in hands, rubbed with them on the skin, passed on to other people as gifts, and as a result, the spread of radioactive contamination began. For more than two weeks, more and more people came into contact with powdered cesium chloride, and none of them knew about the danger associated with it. The environment was seriously polluted. Many buildings had to be demolished. As a result of the infection, four people died.
8. The Windscale Accident - October 10, 1957
The accident occurred on October 10, 1957, when a windsurfing fire set plutonium piles on fire. Radioactive contamination has caused 33 deaths due to cancer. The accident is level 5 on the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES) and is the largest in the history of the UK nuclear industry. The fire released approximately 20,000 curies of iodine-131, as well as 594 curies of cesium-137 and 24,000 curies of xenon-133, among other radionuclides. In addition to this, dairy farms were seriously polluted, dropping milk sales by 15%.
7. The accident at the Chok River laboratory - 1952
The Choke River Laboratory (CRL) is a major research and development site to support and develop nuclear technology, in particular CANDU reactor technology. On December 12, 1952, the destruction of the reactor gate rod, combined with several operator errors, resulted in a large power output more than twice the rated reactor power in the NRX AECL reactor. A series of hydrogen gas explosions hurled the four-ton dome of the storage facility four feet through the air, where it became stuck in the superstructure. Thousands of curia of fission products were released into the atmosphere, and a million gallons of radioactively contaminated water had to be pumped out of the basement and "dumped" into shallow trenches near the Ottawa River. The NRX reactor core must not be decontaminated; it had to be buried as radioactive waste. Young Jimmy Carter, later President of the United States and then a nuclear engineer in the US Navy, was among hundreds of Canadian and American military personnel ordered to participate in the cleanup of the NRX after the accident.
6. Castle Bravo - March 1, 1954
The Micronesian Islands in the Pacific Ocean were the site of more than 20 nuclear weapons tests between 1946 and 1958. Castle Bravo was the code name given to the first dry fuel fusion hydrogen bomb test. The test was carried out on March 1, 1954 at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. When the weapon was detonated, an explosion occurred, creating a crater 6,500 feet (2,000 m) in diameter and 250 feet (75 m) deep. Castle Bravo was a very powerful nuclear device, with a size of 15 megatons, which far exceeded expectations (4-6 megatons). This miscalculation has resulted in the serious radiological contamination ever caused by the United States. In terms of TNT tonnage equivalence, Bravo Castle was approximately 1,200 times more powerful than the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. In addition, the radiation cloud has contaminated more than seven thousand square miles of the surrounding Pacific Ocean, including small islands such as Rongerik, Rongelap and Utirik. These islands were evacuated, but the local people were still exposed to radiation. The natives have suffered from birth defects ever since. The Japanese fishing vessel Daigo Fukuryu Maru also came into contact with nuclear fallout, causing illness for all crew members with one fatality. Fish, water and land were severely contaminated, making Bravo Castle one of the worst nuclear accidents ever.
5. The accident of the Soviet submarine K-431 - August 10, 1985
The Soviet submarine K431 of the Echo II class was badly damaged during refueling in Vladivostok. The explosion sent a radioactive cloud of gas into the air. Ten sailors were killed in the incident, and 49 people were found to have suffered radiation damage with 10 developing radiation illnesses. What's more, of the 2,000 people involved in cleanup operations, 290 were exposed to high levels of radiation compared to normal standards. TIME magazine has identified the accident as one of the "worst nuclear disasters" in the world.
4. NPP "Mayak" - September 29, 1957
NPP Mayak, also known as Chelyabinsk-40 and later Chelyabinsk-65, is one of the largest nuclear facilities in the Russian Federation. It is an integral part of Russia's nuclear weapons program. Over the past 45 years, this facility has experienced 20 or more accidents, affecting at least half a million people. The most famous accident happened on September 29, 1957, exposing the secret newspapers of the Soviets. A malfunction in the cooling system of a tank storing tens of thousands of tons of dissolved nuclear waste resulted in a chemical (non-nuclear) explosion with a force of about 75 tons of TNT (310 gigajoules), which released about 2 million curies of radioactivity in excess of 15,000 sq. miles, which killed at least 200 people from radiation sickness, 10,000 people were evacuated from their homes, and 470,000 people were exposed to radiation. The victims saw the skin “sloughing off” from the face, hands and other parts of their body. A large area has become barren and unusable over the course of decades and possibly centuries. The accident resulted in a large death toll, thousands were injured and the surrounding areas were evacuated. It is classified as a "serious accident" level six out of seven on the International Nuclear Event Scale.
3. Earthquake in Fukushima Prefecture - March 11, 2011
On Friday, a massive magnitude 9 earthquake hit northeastern Japan, killing dozens of people and over 80 fires. A 10-meter tsunami swept away everything along the coast. Homes were swept away and the damage was extensive. And the disaster did not stop there.Eleven reactors at four sites off the northeast coast of Japan were shut down under seismic emergency procedures. Five reactors at two sites in Fukushima Prefecture have declared emergencies due to the loss of normal site power and emergency backup power. According to a British nuclear expert, the explosion at the Fukushima I nuclear power plant looks more like a "significant nuclear event" with greater public health impact than the 1979 Three Mile Island disaster. As of March 15, the Finnish nuclear safety authority rated Fukushima accidents at a 6 on the INES scale. On March 24, a Greenpeace scientific consultant working with data from the Austrian ZAMG and French IRSN prepared an analysis in which he assessed the general average at level 7. The accident caused nuclear pollution in the environment, water, dairy, vegetable and other food products. People living in the damaged areas have been moved to safe places and food grown in the area has been banned from sale. The Japanese government has handled the situation in the most effective and surprising ways. Various medical examinations were carried out and people were provided with proper medical care.
2. Chernobyl disaster - April 26, 1986
The Chernobyl nuclear accident occurred on April 26, 1986 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Ukrainian SSR (now Ukraine) in reactor No. 4 near the city of Pripyat. An explosion occurred that completely destroyed the reactor. The building of the power unit partially collapsed, with the deaths of two people - the operator of the MCP Valery Khodemchuk and the employee of the commissioning enterprise Vladimir Shashenok. Nearby countries, including Russia, were seriously affected, and about 60% of the precipitation landed in Belarus. From 1986 to 2000, about four hundred people were evacuated and resettled from the contaminated regions of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine to more favorable ones. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates the number of deaths to be 4,000, compared with 200,000 or more in the Greenpeace report. Among these varied indicators, it was confirmed that 31 deaths were caused by accidents. The World Health Organization reported that the release of radiation from the Chernobyl accident was 200 times higher than the nuclear bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is considered the most serious nuclear power plant disaster in history and is the only accident classified as a Level 7 event on the International Nuclear Event Scale.
1. The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - World War II, 1945
These nuclear disasters were not accidents, but the most ugly example of human anger and cruelty. This was the result of a war between the two great powers of the world. In the final stages of World War II in 1945, the United States conducted two atomic bombings against the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, the first on August 6, 1945, and the second on August 9, 1945. This nuclear disaster has caused countless deaths and severe physical, emotional and genetic problems that have faced many generations. Families were destroyed and people lost their loved ones, home and money in one day. In the first two to four months after the bombings, an estimated 166,000 people were killed in Hiroshima and 80,000 in Nagasaki. A fifth of all those killed died from radiation sickness, about the same from flash burns, and more than half from other injuries aggravated by disease. The second part of the deaths in each city occurred on the first day. The study says that from 1950 to 2000, 46% of leukemia deaths and 11% of survivor deaths were caused by radiation from bombs. Even after such a large-scale disaster and failure, the Japanese faced this situation with courage and made Japan one of the leading countries in the world.
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Nuclear weapons tests, accidents at nuclear reactors, radioactive releases - there is nothing more dangerous! It is very sad to understand that in most cases the person himself is the culprit of the worst catastrophes on the planet.
