Estimated 100 to 240 cancer fatalities in the long term[1][2][3]
Non-fatal injuries
A maximum of 140 of the estimated 240 additional cases of cancer non-fatal
The Windscale fire of 10 October 1957 was the worst nuclear accident in the United Kingdom's history, and one of the worst in the world, ranked in severity at level 5 out of 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale.[1] The fire was in Unit 1 of the two-pile Windscale site on the north-west coast of England in Cumberland (now Sellafield, Cumbria). The two graphite-moderated reactors, referred to at the time as "piles," had been built as part of the British post-war atomic bomb project. Windscale Pile No. 1 was operational in October 1950, followed by Pile No. 2 in June 1951.[4]
The fire burned for three days and released radioactive fallout which spread across the UK and the rest of Europe.[5] The radioactive isotope iodine-131, which may lead to cancer of the thyroid, was of particular concern at the time. It has since come to light that small but significant amounts of the highly dangerous radioactive isotope polonium-210 were also released.[6][5] It is estimated that the radiation leak may have caused 240 additional cancer cases, with 100 to 240 of these being fatal.[1][2][3]
At the time of the incident, no one was evacuated from the surrounding area, but milk from about 500 km2 (190 square miles) of the nearby countryside was diluted and destroyed for about a month due to concerns about its radiation exposure. The UK government played down the events at the time, and reports on the fire were subject to heavy censorship, as Prime Minister Harold Macmillan feared the incident would harm British-American nuclear relations.[3]
The event was not an isolated incident; there had been a series of radioactive discharges from the piles in the years leading up to the accident.[7] In the spring of 1957, only months before the fire, there was a leak of radioactive material in which strontium-90 isotopes were released into the environment.[8][9] Like the later fire, this incident was also covered up by the British government.[8] Later studies on the release of radioactive material due to the Windscale fire revealed that much of the contamination had resulted from such radiation leaks before the fire.[7]
A 2010 study of workers involved in the cleanup of the accident found no significant long-term health effects from their involvement.[10][11]
^ abcRichard Black (18 March 2011). "Fukushima - disaster or distraction?". BBC News. Retrieved 7 April 2011.
^ abAhlstrom, Dick (8 October 2007). "The unacceptable toll of Britain's nuclear disaster". The Irish Times. Retrieved 15 June 2020.
^ abcHighfield, Roger (9 October 2007). "Windscale fire: 'We were too busy to panic'". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 15 June 2020. Retrieved 15 June 2020.
^Wakeford, Richard (2007). "Editorial". J. Radiol. Prot. 27 (3): 211–215. Bibcode:2007JRP....27..211W. doi:10.1088/0952-4746/27/3/e02. PMID 17768324. S2CID 2115012.
^ abCite error: The named reference bbc-7030536 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^Arnold, Lorna (1995). Windscale 1957: Anatomy of a Nuclear Accident (2nd ed.). London: Palgrave Macmillan UK. p. 147. ISBN 978-1349240081.
^ abHamann, Paul; Blakeway, Denys (1990). Our Reactor is on Fire. Inside Story: BBC TV.
^ abMorgan, Kenneth O. (2001). Britain Since 1945: The People's Peace (3rd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 180. ISBN 0191587990.
^"Info withheld on nuclear accident, papers show". The Index-Journal. Greenwood, South Carolina. 3 January 1989. Retrieved 10 March 2015.
^McGeoghegan, D.; Whaley, S.; Binks, K.; Gillies, M.; Thompson, K.; McElvenny, D. M. (2010). "Mortality and cancer registration experience of the Sellafield workers known to have been involved in the 1957 Windscale accident: 50 year follow-up". Journal of Radiological Protection. 30 (3): 407–431. Bibcode:2010JRP....30..407M. doi:10.1088/0952-4746/30/3/001. PMID 20798473. S2CID 206023363.
^McGeoghegan, D.; Binks, K. (2000). "Mortality and cancer registration experience of the Sellafield employees known to have been involved in the 1957 Windscale accident". Journal of Radiological Protection. 20 (3): 261–274. Bibcode:2000JRP....20..261M. doi:10.1088/0952-4746/20/3/301. PMID 11008931. S2CID 250751210.
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the Windscale nuclear reactor late in the project's construction. However, the amount of radioactive fallout released by the 1957 Windscalefire was substantially...
Archived from the original on 2006-04-24. Retrieved 2007-06-17. "The 1957 WindscaleFire". Retrieved 2007-06-17. "Sellafield". United Kingdom Nuclear Forces...
of one of the reactors ignited and released radionuclides during the Windscalefire of 1957. From 1959 to 1967, he was the first Master of Churchill College...
accidents in graphite-moderated reactors, the Windscalefire and the Chernobyl disaster. In the Windscalefire, an untested annealing process for the graphite...
video displays. Windscalefire On October 10, 1957, the graphite core of a British nuclear reactor at Windscale, Cumbria, caught fire, releasing substantial...
from the original on 14 February 2017. Retrieved 21 September 2016. Windscalefire Benjamin K. Sovacool. The costs of failure: A preliminary assessment...
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operating temperatures. One such release was the indirect cause of the Windscalefire. Accumulation of energy in irradiated graphite has been recorded as...
effect, known as Wigner effect, and must be annealed periodically. The Windscalefire was caused by a mishap during such an annealing operation. Radiation...
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NRX (military), Ontario, Canada, in 1952 Windscale (military), Sellafield, England, in 1957 (see Windscalefire) Chapelcross nuclear power station (civilian)...
margins for radioactive materials inside the Windscale reactor were eroded. This contributed to the Windscalefire on the night of 10 October 1957, which broke...
rare, nuclear and radiation accidents have occurred. These include the Windscalefire (October 1957), the SL-1 accident (1961), the Three Mile Island accident...
amounts of Wigner energy. This problem led to the infamous Windscalefire at the Windscale Piles, a nuclear reactor complex in the United Kingdom, in...
syndrome (ARS) as a direct result of the disaster. October 8, 1957 – Windscalefire ignites plutonium piles and contaminates surrounding dairy farms, 100...
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