1961 IDAHO NUCLEAR PLANT DEADLY EXPLOSION: The world’s first fatal nuclear accident occurred at 9:01 pm on January 3, 1961, at a small, three-megawatt (MW), experimental, boiling water reactor called SL-1 (Stationary Low-Power Plant Number 1) at the National Reactor Testing Station (NRTS) near Idaho Falls, Idaho. A Nuclear Regulatory Commission source attributed the destruction to sabotage. Two Army specialists and a Navy electrician’s mate, aged 22 and 25 years old, manually withdrew a control fuel rod about 50 centimeters, in “routine” preparation for reactor start-up. The reactor power-surged to 20,000 MW in .01 seconds, causing the plate-type fuel to melt and interact with the water in the vessel. The resulting, exploding steam forcefully elevated the water above the core, which hit the lid of and raised the pressure vessel three meters, before dropping back down. Alarms sounded at fire stations and security headquarters. Later, careful examination of the core and vessel concluded that the critically increased reactivity and high levels of detected, released radiation were “largely confined” to the tall building housing the reactor, never designed as a containment structure and connected to a support building with a break room, administrative offices, and classrooms. The incident immediately killed two operators, and one died later. One technician was blown to the ceiling and impaled on a control rod ejected from the SL-1 pressure vessel and embedded in the dome of the structure. His dead body hung there for six days, until a special, truck-mounted sling freed, caught, and transferred the extremely radioactive corpse to another vehicle carrying it inside lead blocks stacked on the rear end, to limit the driver’s exposure. The three bodies were so heavily contaminated that their hands were buried separately with other radioactive waste, and their remains were interred in lead caskets in their Michigan and New York hometowns and in Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C. The permanent record of internment at Arlington remarks: “Victim of nuclear accident. Body is contaminated with long-life radioactive isotopes. Under no circumstances will the body be moved from this location without prior approval of the Atomic Energy Commission, in consultation with this headquarters. To minimize radiation impacts, NRTS employees worked in exceptionally brief, minutes-long, rotating shifts, to remove the bodies and later to dismantle ricocheted, fallen control rods and bent, disfigured I-beams, to decontaminate fire and other trucks, and to disassemble the damaged reactor plant. Using tools mounted on a crane to remove the top of the reactor building, the pressure vessel, reactor, and debris, they dismantled the SL-1 complex and support structures shortly after the explosion and buried them in unlined trenches next to the site and not far from a road. In the late 1990s, the site was capped to prevent plants and animals from reaching the wreckage, but costs and risks prohibited further remediation. An official documentary created by the U.S. government and other original films include close-up reactor and building images, footage of recovery efforts, and rare views from inside and outside the former NRTS facilities. (radiationworks/sl1reactor.htm)
Posted on: Mon, 03 Nov 2014 14:17:23 +0000
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