Inside the core of a nuclear reactor are thousands of long, thin fuel rods made of zirconium alloy that contain uranium.
Although employees at the plant have been risking their lives to try to keep the reactors cool, the chance of a serious meltdown seems to be increasing. Last Fridays 9.0-magnitude earthquake and 10-meter (33-foot) tsunami waves that traveled up to 10 km (6 miles) inland overpowered several of the plants safety measures. In Japan, the current nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant lies somewhere in between Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, according to recent news reports. Although the accident caused public concern, no deaths or adverse health effects have been officially attributed to the meltdown. However, very little radiation was released into the environment due to the surrounding primary containment vessel.
Nuclear reactor meltdown japan 2011 series#
In 1979, a minor cooling system malfunction led to a series of events that caused a partial meltdown that damaged one of the reactors. Today, limited access is allowed inside a 30-km (19-mile) exclusion zone surrounding the area.īy comparison, the Three Mile Island accident in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, was much less serious. As a result, 30 people died of acute radiation syndrome, and thousands of cases of fatal cancers and birth defects have been reported in the following years. Plagued by design flaws and operator errors, the plant experienced fires, explosions, and radiation leakage.
The most serious instance happened in 1986 in Chernobyl, Ukraine.
A handful of nuclear meltdowns of varying degrees of severity have occurred since the 1950s, when researchers began building and testing nuclear reactors.
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