International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons: 5 worst nuclear disasters

Nuclear weapons have destroyed more than any other man-made disaster. The International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons is celebrated every year on September 26 to bring to attention what disasters nuclear weapons are capable of.

Most of us only know of the nuclear bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II and the devastating humanitarian consequences of the use of nuclear weapons.

On this day, let's know about the five worst nuclear disasters in the history of mankind:

1.Tsar Bomba:

The Soviet Union had trumped over America in detonating the biggest nuclear warhead on October 30, 1961. The AN602 hydrogen bomb recorded the most powerful man-made explosion ever to have taken place on Earth. It was detonated at Novaya Zemlya archipelago in the Arctic Ocean.

2. Hiroshima and Nagasaki:

Two nuclear weapons have been exploded in the history of warfare, both by the United States during the World War II.

United States' decision to flatten Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 resulted in the immediate deaths of around 1,20,000 people and more over time, because of the nuclear radiation.

The first event occurred on the morning of August 6, 1945, when America dropped a uranium gun-type device code-named "Little Boy" on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.

The second event occurred three days later when, again, it dropped a plutonium implosion-type device code-named "Fat Man" on the city of Nagasaki.

3. Chernobyl:

The worst nuclear accident in history, the 1986 Chernobyl disaster was a catastrophic nuclear accident that occurred on April 26, 1986 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine (then officially the Ukrainian SSR), which was under the direct jurisdiction of the central authorities of the Soviet Union.

A pair of engineers at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant started running a torture test, to find out what would happen if the reactor lost most of its power supply.

The test went horribly wrong and consequently, an explosion and fire released large quantities of radioactive particles into the atmosphere, which spread over much of the western USSR and Europe.

The battle to contain the contamination and avert a greater catastrophe ultimately involved over 5,00,000 workers and cost an estimated 18 billion rubles.

As many as 31 people died during the accident itself and long-term effects such as cancers are still being investigated.

4. Fukushima:

The nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant began on March 11, 2011 and resulted in a meltdown of three of the plant's six nuclear reactors.

The failure occurred when the plant was hit by a tsunami that had been triggered by the magnitude 9.0 earthquake in the Tohoku region of Japan.

The following day, on March 12, substantial amounts of radioactive material began to release, creating the largest nuclear incident since the Chernobyl disaster and the largest (after Chernobyl) to measure Level 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale.

In a last ditch effort, nuclear power authorities flooded the reactors with seawater, ensuring that the plant will never again be used.

Although no fatalities due to short-term radiation exposure were reported, around 3,00,000 people evacuated the area and around 15,884 (as of February 10, 2014) people died due to the earthquake and tsunami.

As of August 2013, approximately 1600 deaths were related to the evacuation or its consequences.

5. Three Mile Island:

The Three Mile Island accident was a partial nuclear meltdown that occurred on March 28, 1979 in one of the two Three Mile Island nuclear reactors in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, United States.

Just weeks after a Jane Fonda movie (The China Syndrome) raised questions about the safety of nuclear power, a valve in the cooling system of the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor failed.

This was followed by a stuck-open pilot-operated relief valve in the primary system, which allowed large amounts of nuclear reactor coolant to escape.

It was the worst accident in the US commercial nuclear power plant history. The incident was rated a five on the seven-point International Nuclear Event Scale: Accident With Wider Consequences.

Researchers found that people living near Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island exhibited higher levels of stress more than a year after the incident compared to individuals outside the area.

The initial clean-up effort cost nearly a billion dollars.

6. Baneberry Test:

Of the many nuclear weapons tests conducted at Yucca Flat in Nevada, the 1970 Yucca Flat Baneberry Test has been called "the most irradiated, nuclear-blasted spot on the face of the earth."

Although the warhead was buried 900 feet below ground, the plug sealing the shaft from the surface failed and radioactive debris was vented into the atmosphere. Eighty six workers at the site were exposed to radiation.

Image Source: NY times, Wikipedia

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