Nuclear Accidents
Handout for Project - by: Jackie and Hailey :)
Radiation - A Background
Radioactive material can hurt the body by killing cells or causing mutations by messing up the DNA of cells.
Radioactive Iodine and radioactive Cesium are two of the most dangerous radioactive elements when exposed to the body.
Chernobyl Accident
A test was being run at Chernobyl, and the fourth reactor got a sudden power increase, which led to the core exploding.
This was on April 26, 1986
The people of the surrounding area were forced to evacuate, but not until 36 hours after the accident.
This has resulted in possible cancerous effects and diseases in some people.
People have not returned to the surrounding area since the accident because of possible radioactive material.
Three Mile Island
- The most serious nuclear accident to take place in the United States was at Three Mile Island, which is a plant in Pennsylvania.
- This took place on March 28, 1979.
- A technical problem went wrong, leading to radiation being leaked into water, and the core then heated almost to a point of meltdown.
- Luckily, it did not get this far, but it is said that radiation did leak into the air, so pregnant women and children were evacuated from the area.
- Studies have shown that there were no links to cancer from this accident.