A Brief History
On January 3, 1961, a steam explosion occurred at the SL-1 US Army experimental nuclear reactor located outside Idaho Falls, Idaho, leaving three technicians dead, the only immediately fatal US nuclear reactor accident so far.
Digging Deeper
The explosion was caused by the too rapid withdrawal of a control rod, causing the reactor pile to go critical and creating a burst of intense heat that instantly vaporized the cooling water and causing the explosion.
Incredibly, one of the nuclear techs was hit by a high-speed piece of the reactor and pinned to the ceiling, the shield plug having penetrated the worker’s groin and coming out his shoulder which attached him to the ceiling, not surprisingly killing the 26 year old supervisor. The reactor, weighing 26,000 pounds, was found to have jumped over nine feet from the explosion. Two of the casualties died instantly, and the third died a couple hours later.
Having previously experienced false alarms of accidents that same day, damage control personnel were not overly alarmed when they responded and saw only small amounts of steam wafting from the reactor area. Entering the facility, the damage crew noticed nothing out of order though their radioactivity detectors indicated a radiation release. About 17 minutes later, investigators looked into the reactor room and saw water on the floor and mangled metal.
The accident site was cleaned up and the design of all future reactors was changed to prevent similar accidents.
Question for students (and subscribers) to ponder: Do you believe nuclear power is safe?
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Mahaffey, James. Atomic Accidents. Pegasus Books, 2015.
McKeown, William. Idaho Falls: The Untold Story of America’s First Nuclear Accident. ECW Press, 2003.
The featured image in this article, a photograph by John R. Giles, EPA of the SL-1 burial site in 2003, capped with rip rap, is in the public domain in the United States because it is a work prepared by an officer or employee of the United States Government as part of that person’s official duties under the terms of Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 105 of the US Code.
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