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Nuclear and radiation accidents

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Pathways from airborne radioactive contamination to man
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Pathways from airborne radioactive contamination to man

Contents
This article covers notable accidents involving nuclear devices and radioactive materials. In some cases, these incidents involve people being injured or killed due to the release of radioactive contamination. Most incidents involve accidental releases that have caused contamination, but had no other immediate effects. Due to government and business secrecy, it is difficult to determine with certainty the extent of some events listed below.

Because of the different nature of the events it is best to divide the list into nuclear and radiation accidents. An example of nuclear accident might be one in which a reactor core is damaged such as Three Mile Island, while an example of a radiation accident might be some event such as a radiography accident where a worker drops the source into a river or sticks it in his pocket. These radiation accidents such as those involving the radiography sources often as not as widely reported in the popular press but they often have as much, or even greater, ability to cause serious harm to both workers and the public than the well known nuclear accidents.

Radiation accidents are more common than nuclear accidents, and are often limited in scale. For instance at Soreq a worker suffered a dose which was similar to one of the highest doses suffered by a worker on site at Chernobyl on day one, but, because the gamma source was never able to leave the 2 metre thick concrete enclosure, it was not able to harm many others.

The web page at the IAEA which deals with recent accidents is [link]. The safety significance of nuclear accidents can be assessed and conveyed using the IAEA International Nuclear Event Scale.

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) collects reports of incidents occurring at regulated facilities. The agency currently (2006) uses a 4 level taxonomy to classify reported incidents:

Not all reportable events constitute accidents. Incidents which threaten the normal operation or security of a facility may be reportable but not result in any release of radioactivity.

The US Department of Energy uses a similar classification system for events occurring at fuel cycle plants and facilities owned by the US government which are therefore regulated by the DOE instead of the NRC.

Accident types

Loss of coolant accident

Criticality accidents

Criticality accidents and power excursions in nuclear reactors, for example the Chernobyl accident. In a smaller scale accident at Sarov a technician working with highly enriched uranium was irradiated while preparing an experiment involving a sphere of fissile material. The Sarov accident is interesting because the system remained critical for many days before it could be stopped, though it was safely located in a shielded experimental hall [link]. This is an example of a limited scope accident where only a few people can be harmed, while no release of radioactivity into the environment occurred. A criticality accident with limited off site release of both radiation (gamma and neutron) and a very small release of radioactivity occurred at Tokaimura in 1999 during the production of enriched uranium fuel [link].

Decay heat

Decay heat accidents where the heat generated by the radioactive decay causes harm. In a nuclear reactor that big, a loss of coolant accident can damage the core, for instance at Three Mile Island a recently shutdown (SCRAMed) PWR reactor was left for a length of time without cooling water. As a result the nuclear fuel was damaged, and the core was partly melted.

Transport

Transport accidents can cause a release of radioactivity resulting in contamination or shielding to be damaged resulting in direct irradiation. In Cochabamba a defective gamma radiography set was transported in a passenger bus as cargo. The gamma source was outside the shielding, and it irradiated some bus passengers.

In the United Kingdom, it was revealed in a recent court case that a radiotherapy source was transported from Leeds to Sellafield with defective shielding. The shielding had a gap on the underside. It is thought that no human has been seriously harmed by the escaping radiation.

Equipment failure

Equipment failure is one possible type of accident, recently at Białystok in Poland the electronics associated with a particle accelerator used for the treatment of cancer suffered a malfunction [link]. This then lead to the overexposure of at least one patient. While the initial failure was the simple failure of a semiconductor diode, it set in motion a series of events which led to a radiation injury.

Human error

A sketch used by doctors to determine the amount of radiation to which each person had been exposed during the Slotin excursion.
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A sketch used by doctors to determine the amount of radiation to which each person had been exposed during the Slotin excursion.

Human error has been responsible for some accidents, for instance a person miscalculated the activity of a teletherapy source. This then lead to patients being given the wrong dose of gamma rays. In the case of radiotherapy accidents, an underexposure is as much an accident as an overexposure as the patients may not get the full benefit of the prescribed treatment. Also, humans have made errors while attempting to service plants and equipment which has resulted in overdoses of radiation, such as the Nevvizh and Soreq irradiator accidents. In Japan two minor millennium bugs came to light [link]

In 1946 Canadian Manhattan Project physicist Louis Slotin performed a risky experiment known as "tickling the dragon's tail" which involved two hemispheres of plutonium being brought together until separated only by a screwdriver. On this unlucky day the screwdriver slipped, the hemispheres then touched and set off a chain reaction criticality accident filling the room with harmful radiation and a flash of blue light (caused by excited, ionized air particles returning to their unexcited states). Slotin heroically pushed the hemispheres apart with his bare hands to stop the reaction; his actions saved several other co-workers in the present in the room. Slotin absorbed a lethal dose of the radiation and died during the following week.

Lost source

Lost source accidents[link][link] are ones in which a radioactive source is lost, stolen or abandoned. The source then might cause harm to humans or the environment. For example, see the event in Lilo where sources were left behind by the Soviet army. Another case occurred at Yanango where a radiography source was lost, also at Samut Prakarn a cobalt-60 teletherapy source was lost [link] and at Gilan in Iran a radiography source harmed a welder [link]. The best known example of this type of event is the Goiânia accident which occurred in Brazil.

The IAEA have provided guides for scrap metal collectors on what a sealed source might look like.[link][link] The scrap metal industry is the one where lost sources are most likely to be found.[link]

Others

Some accidents defy classification. These accidents happen when the unexpected occurs with a radioactive source. For instance if a bird grabs a radioactive source containing radium from a windowsill and then was to fly away with it, returning to its nest and then the bird dies shortly afterwards from direct irradiation then it is the case that a minor radiation accident has occurred. As the act of placing the source on a window sill by a human was the event which permitted the bird access to the source, it is unclear how such an event should be classified (if is a lost source event or a something else). Radium lost and found[link][link] describes a tale of a pig walking about with a radium source inside; this was a radium source lost from a hospital.

Also some accidents are "normal" industrial accidents which happen to involve radioactive material, for instance a runaway reaction at Tomsk (see red oil) caused radioactive material to be spread around the site.

For a list of many of the most important accidents see the IAEA site [link].

Civilian nuclear accidents

Main article: List of civilian nuclear accidents

Civilian radiation accidents

Main article: List of civilian radiation accidents

Military nuclear accidents

Main article: List of military nuclear accidents

NRC Incident Reports

NRC Alerts

NRC Site Area Emergencies

NRC General Emergencies

NRC ASP Analysis Program

The NRC established the Accident Sequence Precursor (ASP) analysis program in 1979 in response to the Risk Assessment Review Group report (see NUREG/CR-0400, dated September 1978). The primary objective of the ASP Program is to systematically evaluate U.S. nuclear power plant operating experience to identify, document, and rank the operating events that were most likely to lead to inadequate core cooling and severe core damage (precursors), if additional failures had occurred. To identify potential precursors, NRC staff reviews plant events from licensee event reports (LERs), inspection reports, and special requests from NRC staff. The staff then analyzes any identified potential precursors by calculating a probability of an event leading to a core damage state.

(ref [NRC Commission Document SECY-05-0192 Attachment 2] [link])

A "significant precursor" is an event that leads to a conditional core damage probability (CCDP) or increase in core damage probability (CDP) that is greater than or equal to 1×10^-3. In other words given that the precursor event has occurred, the probability that a subsequent failure will cause core damage is >=0.001.

As of 24-Oct-2005 the "significant" precursor events (i.e. the worst category) were (listed from highest probability of occurrence 1 to lowest probability of occurrence 0.001):

1) Three Mile Island Unit 2, CDP = 1.000, (28-Mar-1979)

2) Browns Ferry Unit 1, CDP = 0.200, (22-Mar-1975) (ref [NRC IE BULLETIN NO. - 75-04A])

3) Rancho Seco, CDP = 0.100, (20-Mar-1978)

4) Davis-Besse, CDP = 0.070, (24-Sep-1977)

5) Turkey Point Unit 3, CDP = 0.020, (8-May-1974)

6) Davis-Besse, CDP = 0.010, (9-Jun-1985)

7) Salem Unit 1, CDP = 0.010, (27-Nov-1978)

8) Millstone Unit 2, CDP = 0.010, (20-Jul-1976)

9) Brunswick Unit 2, CDP = 0.009, (29-Apr-1975)

10) Brunswick Unit 1, CDP = 0.007, (19-Apr-1981)

11) Davis-Besse, CDP = 0.006, (27-Feb-2002)

12) Harris Unit 1, CDP = 0.006, (3-Apr-1991)

13) Salem Unit 1, CDP = 0.005, (25-Feb-1983)

14) Millstone Unit 2, CDP = 0.005, (2-Jan-1981)

15) Crystal River Unit 3, CDP = 0.005, (26-Feb-1980)

16) Farley Unit 1, CDP = 0.005, (25-Mar-1978)

17) Davis-Besse, CDP = 0.005, (11-Dec-1977)

18) Kewaunee, CDP = 0.005, (5-Nov-1975)

19) Point Beach Unit 1, CDP = 0.005, (7-Apr-1974)

20) Wolf Creek Unit 1, CDP = 0.003, (17-Sep-1994)

21) Catawba Unit 1, CDP = 0.003, (13-Jun-1986)

22) Calvert Cliffs Unit 1, CDP = 0.003, (13-Apr-1978)

23) Hatch Unit 1, CDP = 0.002, (15-May-1985)

24) Lasalle Unit 1, CDP = 0.002, (21-Sep-1984)

25) Davis-Besse, CDP = 0.002, (24-Jun-1981)

26) Oyster Creek, CDP = 0.002, (2-May-1979)

27) Zion Unit 2, CDP = 0.002, (12-Jul-1977)

28) Turkey Point Unit 3, CDP = 0.001, (27-Dec-1986)

29) St. Lucie Unit 1, CDP = 0.001, (11-Jun-1980)

30) Davis-Besse, CDP = 0.001, (19-Apr-1980)

31) Hatch Unit 2, CDP = 0.001, (3-Jun-1979)

32) Cooper, CDP = 0.001, (31-Aug-1977)

33) Point Beach Unit 1, CDP = 0.001, (12-Jan-1971)

See also

References & External Links

 

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