Around 50 percent of the particles would be deposited outside a radius of 1, kilometres, and around 25 percent would spread even further than 2, kilometres. These results underscore that reactor accidents are likely to cause radioactive contamination well beyond national borders. The results of the dispersion calculations were combined with the likelihood of a nuclear meltdown and the actual density of reactors worldwide to calculate the current risk of radioactive contamination around the world.
According to the International Atomic Energy Agency IAEA , an area with more than 40 kilobecquerels of radioactivity per square meter is defined as contaminated. The team in Mainz found that in Western Europe, where the density of reactors is particularly high, the contamination by more than 40 kilobecquerels per square meter is expected to occur once in about every 50 years.
It appears that citizens in the densely populated southwestern part of Germany run the worldwide highest risk of radioactive contamination, associated with the numerous nuclear power plants situated near the borders between France, Belgium and Germany, and the dominant westerly wind direction.
If a single nuclear meltdown were to occur in Western Europe, around 28 million people on average would be affected by contamination of more than 40 kilobecquerels per square meter. This figure is even higher in southern Asia, due to the dense populations. A major nuclear accident there would affect around 34 million people, while in the eastern USA and in East Asia this would be 14 to 21 million people.
However, an even stronger reduction would result if Germany's neighbours were to switch off their reactors," says Jos Lelieveld. In light of our findings I believe an internationally coordinated phasing out of nuclear energy should also be considered ," adds the atmospheric chemist. Materials provided by Max-Planck-Gesellschaft. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Operators at first worried that extinguishing the flames with water would cause a hydrogen explosion, but ultimately gave in and did so as the crisis escalated. It worked, but not before a sizeable amount of radiation had been unleashed into the surrounding area. A study estimated that the incident had led to over cases of cancer in the surrounding population.
On January 3, , the reactor exploded, killing three workers and causing a meltdown. The cause was a control rod that had been withdrawn incorrectly, but even after an investigation that took two years to complete, the actions taken by the workers just prior to the accident were never discovered.
Still, the incident is notable for being the only fatal nuclear reactor accident in US history, and for inspiring a change to the design of nuclear reactors, so that a mishap involving a single control rod would not do this kind of damage. The bomber, which was carrying four hydrogen bombs caught fire. The nearest emergency landing location was at Thule Air Base in Greenland, but there was not enough time to reach it, so the crew abandoned the bomber. When it crashed, the nuclear payload ruptured and the area became contaminated with radiation.
The March issue of Time magazine classified the event as one of the worst nuclear accidents of all time. The Bohunice nuclear power plant was the first to be built in Czechoslovakia. The reactor was based on an experimental design that was meant to run on uranium mined in Czechoslovakia. However, the first-of-its-kind facility had multiple accidents, and it had to be shut down more than 30 times.
Two workers had been killed in a incident, but the worst mishap occurred on February 22, when a worker removed control rods incorrectly during a routine fuel change. This simple error caused a massive radioactive leak, and the ensuing accident earned a level 4 rating on the International Nuclear Event Scale of 1 to 7.
The Soviet government covered up the accident, so no reliable estimates of casualties have been released to the public. However, in , the government decommissioned the plant, and it is expected to be fully dismantled in Resulting fires spread huge amounts of radioactive waste across Western Europe, killing around 30 people from acute radiation poisoning in the immediate aftermath and raising longterm fears of increased instances of thyroid cancer.
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Stay ahead of the competition with regular process industry news instalments from PIF. Skip to content. The five worst nuclear disasters in history With great power comes great responsibility. How are nuclear accidents measured? Top 5 Nuclear Disasters 5. Latest update Nuclear power plant accidents: listed and ranked since How many nuclear power plants have had accidents and incidents?
How often do nuclear power plants go wrong? How many accidents and incidents are there? Using Google Fusion tables, we've put these on a map, so you can see how they're spread around the globe: Get the fullscreen version But how serious are they?
You can see the full ranking system below and on the attached spreadsheet What can you do with the data? Data summary Nuclear power station accidents and incidents Click heading to sort table. Download this data Year. Download this data Level. We have switched off comments on this old version of the site. To comment on crosswords, please switch over to the new version to comment. Read more All rights reserved.
Reactor shutdown after the Sendai earthquake and tsunami; failure of emergency cooling caused an explosion. Reactor shutdown after the Sendai earthquake and tsunami caused a fire.
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