Disasters: Nuclear Accidents

OI all the environmental disaster events that humans are capable oI causing, nuclear disasters
have the greatest damage potential. The radiation release associated with a nuclear disaster poses
signiIicant acute and chronic risks in the immediate environs and chronic risk over a wide
geographic area. Radioactive contamination, which typically becomes airborne, is long-lived,
with half-lives guaranteeing contamination Ior hundreds oI years.
Concerns over potential nuclear disasters center on nuclear reactors, typically those used to
generate electric power. Other concerns involve the transport oI nuclear waste and the temporary
storage oI spent radioactive fuel at nuclear power plants. The Iear that terrorists would target a
radiation source or create a "dirty bomb" capable oI dispersing radiation over a populated area
was added to these concerns Iollowing the 2001 terrorist attacks on New York City and
Washington, D.C.
Radioactive emissions oI particular concern include strontium-90 and cesium-137, both having
thirty-year-plus halI-lives, and iodine-131, having a short halI-liIe oI eight days but known to
cause thyroid cancer. In addition to being highly radioactive, cesium-137 is mistaken Ior
potassium by living organisms. This means that it is passed on up the Iood chain and
bioaccumulated by that process. Strontium-90 mimics the properties oI calcium and is deposited
in bones where it may either cause cancer or damage bone marrow cells.

The Chernobyl Disaster
Concern became reality at 1:23 A.M. on April 25, 1986, when the worst civil nuclear catastrophe
in history occurred at the nuclear power plant at Chernobyl, Soviet Union (which is now in
Ukraine). More than thirty people were killed immediately. The radiation release was thirty to
Iorty times that oI the atomic bombs dropped on Japan during World War II. Hundreds oI
thousands oI people were ultimately evacuated Irom the most heavily contaminated zone
surrounding Chernobyl. Radiation spread to encompass almost all oI Europe and Asia Minor; the
world Iirst learned oI the disaster when a nuclear Iacility in Sweden recorded abnormal radiation
levels.
Chernobyl had Iour RBMK-type reactors. These reactors suIIer Irom instability at low power and
are susceptible to rapid, diIIicult-to-control power increases. The accident occurred as workers
were testing reactor number Iour. The test was being conducted improperly; as Iew as six
control rods were in place despite orders stating that a minimum oI thirty rods were necessary to
maintain control, and the reactor's emergency cooling system had been shut down as part oI the
test. An operator error caused the reactor's power to drop below speciIied levels, setting oII a
catastrophic power surge that caused Iuel rods to rupture, triggering explosions that Iirst
destroyed the reactor core and then blew apart the reactors' massive steel and concrete
containment structure.
The health impacts oI the Chernobyl explosion will never be Iully known. It is estimated that
some three million people still live in contaminated areas and almost ten thousand people still
live in Chernobyl itselI. The plant itselI was not Iully shut down until nearly IiIteen years aIter
the disaster. Studies by the Belarus Ministry oI Health, located approximately eighty miles south
oI Chernobyl, Iound that rates oI thyroid cancer began to soar in contaminated regions in 1990,
Iour years aIter the radiation release. Gomel, Belarus, the most highly contaminated region
studied, reported thirty-eight cases in 1991. Gomel normally recorded only one to two cases per
year. Health oIIicials in Turkey, 930 miles to the south, reported that leukemia rates are twelve
times higher than beIore the Chenobyl accident.

Three Mile Island
The thriller China Syndrome, which warned that a nuclear power plant meltdown would blow a
hole through the earth all the way to China and "render an area the size oI Pennsylvania
permanently uninhabitable" had been playing Ior eleven days when, at 4:00 am on March 28,
1979, Reactor #2 at the Three Mile Island (TMI) nuclear power plant suIIered a partial
meltdown. The plant was just downriver Irom Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
Film story, reality, and perception all interplayed to create near national panic. The accident
occurred sequentially. A minor problem caused the temperature oI the primary coolant to rise. In
one second, the reactor shut down but a relieI valve that was supposed to close aIter ten seconds
remained open. Plant instrumentation showed operators that a "close valve" signal had been sent.
There was no instrumentation to tell them the valve itselI was still open. The reactor's primary
coolant drained away and the reactor core suIIered serious damage. Fuel rods were damaged,
leaking radioactive material into the cooling water and a high temperature chemical reaction
created bubbles oI hydrogen gas. One oI these bubbles burned, creating Iears that a larger
hydrogen bubble would explode, possibly breaching the plant's containment structure. Some
gases were purposeIully vented into the atmosphere.
It took nearly a Iull month the bring the reactor into "cold shutdown" status. That said, there was
never danger oI a massive explosion and hundreds oI readings taken by the Pennsylvania
Department oI Environmental Resources showed almost no iodine, and all readings were Iar
below health limits. There was, however, widespread panic including a unordered mass
evacuation. The greatest problem at TMI was a total Iailure oI communication. Internal
radioactivity levels, Ior example, were reported as ambient (outdoor) air readings.
The many health studies Iollowing TMI showed no evidence oI abnormal cancer rates. For
eighteen years, the Pennsylvania Department oI Health maintained a registry oI 30,000 people
who lived within Iive miles oI TMI; it

Acivil deIense worker is using Geiger counter to check radiation level near a school building
Iollowing the accidental radiation leak Irom the nearby Three Mile Island nuclear power plant.
Schoolchildren are being evacuated via bus.
(Wally McNamee/Corbis. Reproduced by permission.)
Iound no evidence on unusual health trends. TMI's only health eIIect was psychological stress
related to the accident.
While there were Iew long-term health eIIects, there is no doubt that the accident at TMI
permanently changed both the nuclear industry and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).
"Public Iear and distrust increased," the NRC notes in a Iact sheet on TMI, "Regulations and
oversight became broader and more robust, and management oI the plants was scrutinized more
careIully."
Nuclear Submarines
On August 12, 2000, an explosion in a torpedo tube sank the giant Russian nuclear submarine
:rsk and its crew oI 118 in the Barents Sea. Russian oIIicials described the sinking as a
"catastrophe that developed at lightning

Two cooling towers at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant.
(W. Cody/Corbis. Reproduced by permission.)
speed." A week later, divers opened the rear hatch oI the sub but Iound no survivors. It took
salvagers two years, but the :rsk and her two nuclear reactors was raised.
The :rsk was the sixth nuclear submarine to have sunk since 1963. The others all came to rest
on the ocean Iloor at depths oI more than 4,500 Ieet, Iar below where most marine liIe lives.
They include two Iormer Soviet submarinesone that sank east oI Bermuda in 1986 and another
that went down in the Bay oI Biscay in 1970and two U.S. nuclear submarinesthe U.S.S.
%hresher and U.S.S. Scorpion which sank in the 1960s at the height oI the Cold War.
U.S. Navy oIIicials report there is little likelihood oI radioactive release Irom the U.S. ships.
Reactor Iuel elements in American submarines are made oI materials that are extremely
corrosion resistant, even in sea water. The protective cladding on the Iuel elements corrodes only
a Iew millionths oI an inch per year, meaning the reactor core could remain submerged in sea
water Ior centuries without releases oI Iission products while the radioactivity decays.
Comprehensive deep ocean radiological monitoring operations were conducted at the %hresher
site in 1965, 1977, 1983, and again in 1986. None oI the samples obtained showed any evidence
oI release oI radioactivity Irom the reactor Iuel elements.
Internet Resources
Nave, C.R. "Hyper Physics." Available Irom http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/hIrame.html .
Public Citizen. "Decades oI Delay: The NRC's Failure to Stockpile Potassium Iodide & Protect the Public Health
and SaIety" Available Irom http://www.citizen.org/cmep/energyenvironuclear/nuclearpowerplants
reactorsaIety/articles.cIm? ID4433 .
Subnet. "USS %hresher (SSN-593)." Available Irom http://www.subnet.com/Ileet/ssn593.htm .
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. "Fact Sheet on the Accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant."
Available Irom http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/Iact-sheets/Ischernobyl. tml .
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. "Fact Sheet on the Accident at Three Mile Island." Available Irom
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/Iact-sheets/3mile-isle.h ml .
Richard M. Stapleton
Fears oI terrorist attacks on nuclear power plants have prompted state and local health oIIices to
distribute supplies oI potassium iodide pills, known as KI, to be taken in the event oI a release oI
radioactive materials. KI blocks the intake oI radioactive iodine by the thyroid and helps prevent
thyroid cancer. The pills were provided by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.