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Talk:Nuclear and radiation accidents and incidents/Archive 1

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This Archive page contains discussions prior to May, 2005. Please do not add comments here.

Current discussions are to be found Talk:List of nuclear accidents



In 1981 Israel bombed Iraq's Osirak reactor faculty. In some ways it doesn't qualify as an accident and I don't know what was released but I get the feeling it might belong on this list.

Why is Menlo Park classifed as a nuclear accident. The report says it was an electrochemical explosion - were any radioactive materials leaked? DJ Clayworth 20:54, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I moved this here because I felt it did not belong in the article:

This paragraph is a balancing paragraph to maintain a neutral point of view. It's important not to demonize nuclear power. Many chemical poisons are more persistent than nuclear wastes. After 600 years, high level reactor waste decays to the point that it is no more radioactive than natural radioactive ores. This is dangerous, but it's a danger with which humans have always lived. One's chance of dying in an auto accident remains hundreds of times larger than dying of radiation-induced cancer. Also, heavy radioactive isotopes such as Plutonium do not easily migrate through soil, or embed in flesh when breathed. Most natural Uranium and Thorium deposits are found in regions with a substantial current of ground water. That is, they did not migrate with the ground water. Of course light isotopes such as Iodine 131, Cesium 137 and Tritium migrate easily in water, but they also have far shorter half-lives- tens of years, rather than thousands, so they are quite likely to decay before they reach people.

Thoughts anyone? --Viajero 22:52, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)

My first thought is that this list has to be taken from a US-based anti-nuclear activist group. 1 mention of a British accident, 2 mentions of a Russian ones, 2 mentions of Japanese ones, no mentions of accidents in the dozens of other countries that use medical, commercial, military and reearch like France, but over 70 US cites -several are which are not nuclear accidents, some aren't even accidents. Rmhermen 23:21, Dec 1, 2003 (UTC)
To the author of the intro: This article is a list of accidents. If you want to pursue a discussion of the pros and cons of nuclear power, this is not the place to do it. -- Viajero 23:41, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Perhaps the US incidents were merely easier to research due to the FOIA? And perhaps the original author is in the US and has better access to US newspapers, etc? Just guessing. No doubt there are many non-US incidents that should be added. Tualha 17:01, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Here is one source for other accidents. [1] In it we find that twenty years of US dumping radioactive waste in the Pacific (not an accident) released less radioactivity the one Soviet satellite (also not an accident because they knew it had to come back down sometime.) See also [2] for several US and Soviet satellites that came down in an unplanned manner. (but do they count as accidents? Maybe they planned sometime in the next 600 years to go get them safely and they are accidents because they didn't last that long?) Rmhermen 00:40, Dec 2, 2003 (UTC)

Great article. Someone should note that this article ignores an important case. The following page analyzes the Cesium 137 accident in Goiânia, Brazil:

http://www.nbc-med.org/SiteContent/MedRef/OnlineRef/CaseStudies/csgoiania.html

It was a major nuclear accident, second only to Chernobyl, according to this article. I happen to live in this city and people here use to mention this as THE greatest nuclear accident in history - what of course could be exagerated, but still worths mention. This accident also provoked a sad social damage. By that time, some people would even avoid getting close to someone from this city, fearing 'the contamination'.Yves 04:31, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I have to agree with Viajero does not belong in the article. Regardless of whether you are think pro or con about nuclear power/energy we should stick to the facts that are relevant to the theme of article which is nuclear accidents. Lets stick to the relevant and pertinent facts about the accidents.

Menlo Park should be removed.

While satellite crashes that happen to be nuclear powered or contain nuclear materials may be relevant, I have to fall on the side of them being related more to satellite accidents/failures etc., then nuclear accidents.

As a side note about the Wiki, this place is amazing. I am brand new and think it is amazing that we can all contribute to making a wonderful source of information. I am going to give the Wiki a big plug at work. Argonaut 04:36, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)


May 1997, Hanford Engineering Works, Hanford, Washington - A 40 gallon...The contractors and department of energy covered it up.

Is there any evidence of this alleged cover up by the government? Evidence of the contractors is given but none about a government cover up. None of my sources mention the gov't. I think it should be removed. Thoughts anyone?

All of the edtion to my original text for 3 January 1961 is lifted straight from this page http://www.lutins.org/nukes.html. I think this is a copyright violation.

Much the the remaining text is copied and pasted as well. I think a more neutral perspective to some of the language is needed as well.

Argonaut 04:44, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Argonaut, please put your comments after the correct paragraph, so we can see the 'thread' correctly.Yves 05:21, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)

9 December 1968, Nevada - An underground test of nuclear explosives releases clouds of radioactive steam.

I do not think this qualifies for the list of "Nuclear Accident." It is a test explosion. This is a bit like saying, firing a gun for a test, accidentally causes damage in the target. Argonaut 15:23, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)
(Don't overlook the one in 1961.) Actually, I think they should both be listed. Radioactivite material was unintentionally released into the atmosphere. In a sense, this is more "accidental" than an atmospheric test would be, since there are no surprises in the latter case. Tualha 17:01, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)

5 September 1961 - U.S. President Kennedy allows underground nuclear tests.

This does not apply. Going to remove if no one objects. Argonaut 15:23, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Sounds good to me. I don't think it's really needed for context. Tualha 17:01, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)

27 July 1956 Lakenheath Royal Air Force Station, Cambridge, England - A U.S. B-47 crashes into a storage igloo housing three Mark 6 nuclear bombs. Each bomb has 8,000 pounds of TNT in its trigger. Fire fighters extinguish the burning jet fuel before it ignites the TNT. The crew escapes.

I think this does not apply either. Was any radioactive or nuclear material released? The bombs did not explode. According to most sources this is not listed as an accident because the bombs in storage could not be exploded without the proper detonating and arming equipment installed. But again nothing "nuclear accident" occured. I think it should be removed. Argonaut 15:29, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)

"Airborne plutonium levels were 1000 above normal.". Does this mean 1000 times normal? Airborne Plutonium levels are miniscule - my guess is they could be 1000 times normal and still not make a significant idfference to background radiation.

(inicidentally, the Goiânia, Brazil incident doesn't come close to being the second worst accident - Windscale released more than ten times the radioactive material.) DJ Clayworth 15:51, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)
can't find a valid source to confirm this information Argonaut 18:51, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)

What are the criteria for this page. We have

  • radiation releases
  • some nuclear tests but not most
  • nuclear weapon handling accidents without radiation release
  • nuclear policy statements
  • routine if not modern nuclear waste handling
  • Cold Fusion!

I would cut everything except the actual unintentional radiation releases. Any thoughts? Rmhermen 15:58, Dec 2, 2003 (UTC)

I like the list for the most part. nuclear tests. Every nuclear test release radiation. I would think a test that was detonated in the wrong place or blew someones house or something notable in terms of a disaster would be notable. Otherwise we will have to list alomost all tests.

I don't understand why policy statements are relevant.

Unless there is a cold fusion accident I don't think it is relevant. Argonaut 18:51, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I don't know if this article should be in the present or the past tense, but it should be consistent, anyway. I'm inclined to think the past tense would be more encyclopedic.

I wonder if it would be better to split this into two articles? (1) clear-cut accidents - unanticipated, unintended, oops. (2) releases that were more "expected" - satellite orbit decay, atmosphere tests.

Tualha 17:01, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC) ---

I entered many of the controversial list items.

To Argonaut, although I did get much of my information from that (lovely) site, I also rewrote the entries. Copyright protects expression, not ideas or information. In this venue, people can add to and correct the information, which therefore has a significantly different value than that site. I also added unique information about the Thresher accident (1963), and the Idaho Nuclear Criticality Incident January 3, 1961, which I have researched. This information note, is -not- on that site.

My criteria for entering items was whether an accident killed someone, released radioactives, which may increase one's risk of getting cancer, or might have done so.

By the way, I agree that the list is quite long. However, that is also very interesting. I'd favor keeping the list in one place, but moving the main text of larger or more important entries to their own articles. For example, the 1946 Slotkin incident, and 1963 Thresher may deserve their own articles.

Some influential events for nuclear engineers were the 1958 criticality incident, which persuaded the AEC not to use manual control of critical assemblies, the 1961 criticality incident on the Idaho proving grounds, which caused all following reactor designs to require movement of multiple control rods before a reactor could go critical. Another is the decommissioning of both U.S. fuel reprocessing plants, for environmental compliance failure. This is cited by anti-nuclear activists as evidence that private enterprise can't be trusted to reprocess nuclear fuel safely (sad, if true).

Thanks for responding. I am glad you entered the information you did. I was merely concerned we would get into trouble for simply copying whole sentences and even entries. I am by no means a copyright expert.
The criteria for inclusion you cited seems reasonable. Given your criteria, some of the entries are still probably irrelevant. I suppose that is the nature of the Wikipedia. The length of the list is unimportant to me. The more events that make the list the better our content.
Much of the information and therfore the tone and language of the information comes from a clearly anti-nuclear activist site. I think it is more fair to the readers and ourselves if we use a more neutral language. The way to accomplish this is by citing facts and refraining from conjecture. Once again thankks for the dialog. Argonaut 21:08, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)
You say that your criteria were radiation release but many of the incidents listed did not involve any. You also included some deaths from non-nuclear accidents but not others, and am I right in thinking that your third criteria was any accident that might possibly have caused radiation leakage? That is awfully broad especially considering no nuclear accident happened in those cases. Rmhermen 21:30, Dec 2, 2003 (UTC)

The POV of this article is terrible. From the Greenpeace site[3] we find: up to 1993 "As a result of accidents, some 51 nuclear warheads were lost into sea (44 Soviet and 7 U.S. However, at least one Soviet warhead was recovered). Also, seven nuclear reactors (5 Soviet and 2 U.S.) from three Soviet and two U.S. nuclear-powered submarines have been lost at sea due to accidents. Another 19 nuclear reactors from nuclear-powered vessels have been deliberately dumped at sea (18 Soviet and 1 U.S.)." Our list has 3 US submarines sunk! And zero Russian. Warheads in the sea we list 4 US and zero Russian. Reactors lost at sea we have 1 US and zero Russian. Something is not right here. (The warhead count includes ones I removed from the list recently from the 1950's as they didn't claim radiation release.) Rmhermen 22:42, Dec 2, 2003 (UTC)

I agree the POV is terrible. There are far too many questionable entries that are not nuclear accidents by any stretch of the imagination. Elde 00:58, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)
To be frank, this list is and is likely to remain propaganda. Example:
August 9, 2004 – An accident in the nuclear power of Mihama, in the Fukui prefecture 320 km northwest of Tokyo causes the five deaths and seven injuries, the deadliest nuclear power plant accident in Japan. The cause of the accident is a leak of non-radioactive steam in the reactor number 3 building. The power plant's operator recognized a defect of control procedures in its installations. The broken pipe did not meet the security norms. Local authorities announced that no radioactive leaks occurred outside of the building.
Was there any nuclear content at all to this incident? There are negative statements that the steam wasn't radioactive and there was no radioactive release outside the building, but it doesn't actually say whether there was any radioactive release at all, and my cynical guess is that there wasn't and that's why the author doesn't say either way!
But I'm not sure that there's anything we can do about it. I don't have the time to clean it all up, as it will be an ongoing process. It would be a valuable and encyclopedic article if it could be cleaned up. Eventually I'm hopeful that the proponents will get the idea of NPOV, which is that long term, knowledge is more valuable than propaganda however noble the cause may be, and that they'll then clean it up themselves. Meanwhile, this is just one of the admitted reasons why Wikipedia is not so great. Andrewa 04:31, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I would propose redoing this list as:

A "list of accidents" where radiation was released followed by a "list of near accidents" where radiation wasn't released. And perhaps a third section on "Unintended effects of intentional acts".

The first section could have reactor meltdowns, handling leaks, broken warheads. The second would include dropped uncompromised bombs, exploding rockets, etc. The third would include radioactive fallout from tests, spacecraft reentries, etc. That is the first would be a list of Radiation accidents, the second section would be accidents that didn't involve radiation but could have. And the third section would cover radiation releases that weren't accidents.

Yes, the chronological ordering is nice, but I think by-category would be nicer. I actually came here looking for a list of missing nuclear weapons. — B.Bryant 16:59, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Anyone think this should be moved to List of radiation accidents? Rmhermen 22:42, Dec 2, 2003 (UTC)

Reading all this, I'm beginning to think it doesn't matter how we do it because we're all gonna die!!!!! ;) Tualha 08:20, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I think that there is an error in the Enrico Fermi entry for 1966, although I'm not absolutely sure. The reference to three workers buried in lead-lined coffins is questionable. I think it refers to the 1961 SL-1 accident. No workers that I'm aware of died due to the 1966 accident, nor am I aware of any contaminated sufficiently to warrant special burial procedures upon death at a later time. Can an expert on the Fermi accident confirm any of this?

Brian Rock 14:07, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Why was the information on the lucky dragon removed? I will add it again, though discussion seems relevent if someone thinks it should not be included here. Punkche 17:30 12/3/03 MST

EDIT: After reviewing the history a bit more, I see why it was removed. However, until the page is split into relevant sections, I think removal of incidents of any sort that are confirmed is unneccesary. For example, historically the Lucky Dragon incident is considered one of the most important Nuclear Accidents. People were contaminated and died. Others became terribly ill. Regardless of the intention of the US government whent the bomb was detonated, it was an accident because unintentional results came about. And the argument of having every nuclear test included here because of another being included seems to be a bit of a strange reaction. While it is true that every nuclear test releases radiation, and that nuclear tests are linked to earthquakes, the point of the lucky dragon entry into this list is not to show that radiation is released by testing but that a large group of people were exposed to nuclear fallout. This was the first time humans experienced fallout, and this is extremely important in the history of nuclear accidents. Punkche 17:40 12/13/03 MST

It was not the first time humans were exposed to fallout--Ever heard of Hiroshima! And humans were exposed to radiation and fallout intentionally in many of the 1940's and 1950's tests. The list of just those would be huge. Not to mention those intentional sent in to take measurments and do cleanup after the tests. Rmhermen 04:21, Dec 14, 2003 (UTC)

he said fallout not just radiation, though Hiroshima/Nagasaki certainly quallifies. as for whether certain events technicly qualify, I think when in doubt, wiki should include more information, not less. until a new article or category is created for the borderline cases, they should stay here Vroman 04:33, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)vroman

Why are people differentiating between accidents and "unintentional results?" If I drive my car to work from home and on the way hit a pedestrian, is that an accident or an unintentional result? I'd say both. I think they are the same thing. Punkche 11:00 12/16/03 MST

It's not an accident if you aimed at the pedestrian. If you set of an nuclear bomb it is not an accident when fallout comes back down. Rmhermen 21:11, Dec 16, 2003 (UTC)
But it IS an accident when it comes down where you don't think it will and it contaminates the entire Bikini Atoll and the Lucky Dragon, in my opinion.Punkche 15:40 12/16/03 MST

If the fallout acted in an unpredicted and hazardous fashion, it is an accident. Lirath Q. Pynnor

Info on 1961 SL-1 vs 1966 Fermi fatalities. [4] There were no direct or known indirect fatalities at Fermi. There were three at SL-1.

Brian Rock 06:40, 30 Dec 2003 (UTC)


I removed this

  • 1954 – The submarine USS Seawolf (SSN-575) scuttled an experimental sodium-cooled reactor in 9,000 ft (2,700 m) of water off the Delaware/Maryland coast. At 33 kCi it's likely the most radioactive single object ever deliberately sunk, and had not been retrieved as of 2004. The reactor had problems with corrosion from the coolant, and was replaced by a conventional light-water reactor.

It's not true. The Seawolf wasn't even commissioned until July 21, 1955, and the reactor was removed, not scuttled, in 1959.

Facts obtained from http://www.seawolf-ssn575.com/ssn575/SEAWOLF.html

The reactor was removed, sealed into a barge, and the barge was scuttled. Elde 00:58, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

"August 1983 – 3,700 liters of tritium leaks into Lake Huron and Lake Ontario from Canadian nuclear power stations"

There's simply NO WAY that much pure tritium was dumped into the lake. This must mean tritium contaminated water in which case, how contaminated?

Obviously, this is probably 3,700 liters of heavy water contaminated with tritium. The heavy water is used as a moderator, and the neutrons convert a small fraction of the deuterium into tritium. See http://www.nuclearfaq.ca/cnf_sectionD.htm#x5. In particular, this quote about processing the heavy water moderator: "Ontario Power Generation can process up to 2.5 thousand tonnes (2,500 Mg) of heavy water a year, producing about 2.5 kg of tritium with a purity greater than 98%." pstudier 08:49, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

January 19, 1961, Monticello, Utah

A B-52 bomber carring one or more nuclear weapon was reported to have exploded in midair about 10 miles north of Monticello, Utah (source: www.cdi.org/issues/nukeaccidents/accidents.htm). Why isn't this particlular indicent listed in the Wikipedia encyclopedia?

There is no reason why it hasn't been added. Why don't you do it? --enceladus 08:32, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

In Australia about 6 months ago, at a uranium mine in the north, somehow a uranium contaminated water disposal pipe was connected to the facility's drinking water supply. Several workers showered in and drank the water, and are now pursuing legal action. I don't know more detail than this right now, and I'm too busy to research it but if anyone knows any more about this, it should go up maybe? Thanks! --Hoju 09:42, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Brown's Ferry, Tennessee

Does anyone know why:

January 15–16, 1983 – At a nuclear power plant in Brown's Ferry, Tennessee, 207,000 US gallons (780 m³) of low-level radioactive water is accidentally dumped into the Tennessee River.

has been commented out. Can't see anything in the discussions about it. --enceladus 05:44, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

  • Could be a confusion with Brown's Ferry in Alabama on Tennessee River. I doubt there are two reactors with the same name "Brown's Ferry". Mikkalai 18:31, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Mayak

I just created Mayak, only to find there was more information than I had added in my stub already written here! Good- I think. I'm not sure how to divide up the information. Clearly there should be more on Mayak than on this page, but I can't decide what should be moved. If anyone has some ideas, please just be bold and do them. JesseW 20:52, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Nazi nuclear program

Wasn't there a fairly severe accident in the Nazi nuclear program, one that effectively brought the program to a halt?

Although the Nazi's build a heavy water and natural uranium reactor, it never went critical. They never enriched uranium. Problems they had were the choice of heavy water over graphite for reactors, allied bombing and sabotage of the heavy water plants in Norway, and on the part of Heisenberg either incompetence or unwillingness to build a bomb. pstudier 23:21, 2004 Oct 26 (UTC)

Removed information

The following was removed from the section of the article on the 1986 Hanford declassification. Think we can use any of it?

JSD -- This misstates somewhat the concerns raised by the document release. The primary concern was the airborne release of something on the order of 700,000 curies of radio-iodine, primarily during the first two or three years of operation of the reactors and the chemical separation facilities (1945-47). The early releases were primarily from the separation facilities and were reduced by a factor of about a hundred by the addition of silver to the sand filters filtering the airborne releases from the plants. In 1952, there was an intentional release of 5000 curies of radio-iodine (the Green Run) to the atmosphere. The intent was to develop a basis for interpreting airborne radiation from Soviet atomic weapons plants and weapons tests. The document release lead to a 14-year epidemiological study of thyroid disease in the counties surrounding the Hanford Site and in several control counties outside the area of dispersion of the airborne releases (the Hanford Thyroid Disease Study). The final report from that project found no statistically significant difference in thyroid disease between the near-Hanford and control counties. The HTDS also looked at releases of phosphorus-32 to the river, but did not consider the airborne release of any radionuclides other than iodine-131. There is similar confusion about liquid releases from the Hanford Site. As noted in the Wikipedia entry for the Hanford Site, the early once-through reactors at times released significant amounts of radionuclides to the Columbia River, some of which can still be found in river bottom sediment downstream from the reactors. The chemical separation process (located on the plateau in the center of the site, a few hundred feet above and about 10 miles from the river) produced two liquid efluent streams. One was high-volume with low levels of radionuclide concentrations. Billions of gallons of the low-level effluent was poured into the sand, migrated 300-400 feet down to groundwater and eventually 10-20 miles downgrade in the aquifer to the Columbia River. Some of those radionuclides are presumably still in river sediment. The second waste stream was low-volume with high concentrations of radionuclides. That was diverted to waste storage tanks, initially 149 carbon steel tanks and later to 28 double-shell carbon steel tanks. A number of the original single-shell tanks leaked over the years, a total of approximately one million gallons of the high-level waste. Most of that million gallons is sequestered in the soil between the tanks and the aquifers 300-400 feet below. A small fraction has reached the aquifer. Since the once-through reactors were shut down, all radionuclides reaching the Columbia from Hanford waste streams have been sufficiently diluted by the flow of the Columbia to be below EPA drinking water standards by the time the water reaches the water intake of the Richland water plant just downstream from the Hanford Site.
Jim Dukelow -- jim.dukelow@pnl.gov
Information about the Hanford Thyroid Disease Study is available from the CDC web site. Information about Hanford airborne and liquid effluents is in Hanford documents (available, I believe, from the Hanford web site, www.hanford.gov, and through Google search). Information about timing of Hanford airborne releases is available from Hanford documents and, I believe, in the HTDS Final Report. Monitoring of radionuclide in the Columbia is done by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and reports should be available from the laboratory web site or from the Hanford web site.

--Carnildo 00:50, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Is dumping heavy water into a container designed to hold it an accident?

Removed Davis-Besse. This does not rise to the level of an accident. No one hurt, no radioactivity released. pstudier 00:34, 2005 Feb 25 (UTC)

Unconfirmed incidents

I renoved this section:

  • The (supposedly successful) Japanese program to develop nuclear weapons in World War II. The story is that a prototype was exploded in the China Sea, but the factory in Japanese Korea was not yet on-line when the US began nuclear bombing of Japan. (This is unlikely, as there is no evidence that Japan had acquired sufficient materials for an atom bomb.)
  • Reports of glow slaves (intentionally irradiated unwilling nuclear laborers) in the USSR, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea, United States and pre-World War II Japanese Korea.

"glow slaves" gives only 3 google hits excluding wikipedia, and if the japanese really exploded a nuke it wouldn't be an accident. Thue | talk 13:37, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Am i seeing double?

Why is the same article here twice? Isn't that just a colossal waste of space? If you look past the first references, you see the EXACT SAME THING from 1960's onwards! Why was this reverted back to this form after i took off all this extra crap? --DA Roc 22:32, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Please accept my apology. I saw a huge amount of stuff just deleted, and assumed without checking that it was vandalism. Don't know how the stuff got duplicated in the first place, it was probably by accident. pstudier 22:46, 2005 Mar 17 (UTC)

No problem, it was partly my fault. I pressed the save page before putting in a comment to explain.--DA Roc 12:01, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

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