Accidents in the

nuclear industry

By : Mirza Begović
 Table of contents

Introduction Minor accidents

01 Here we will briefly introduce
nuclear scaling INES 02 In nuclear history there were
some minuscule events

Major accidents
03 The uneventful must happen
 01
Introduction
General accidents in the
nuclear industry are
classified by the INES
(International Nuclear and
Radiological Event Scale)
scale.
Wherever radiation is
involved there is INES as
well.
This scale is logarithmic, which means every level is 10
times worse than the previous. The same as the richter
scale.

It is grouped in two major groups :

*Incident (minor accident)

*Accident (major accident)
 02
Minor accident
Forsmark 2006. A short circuit in a switchgear at Forsmark 1 caused a
disturbance in the electricity supply. Only two of four reserve power
units started. No emissions occurred. This is an INES 2 incident.
Vandellos 1989. The incident at the Vandellos nuclear power plant in
Spain did not cause any external emissions of radioactivity, nor did it
cause any damage to the reactor core or contamination in the
plant.This is an INES 3 incident.
 03
Accidents
Lia radiological accident

In 2001 three men were in Georgian woods

near Lia. It was cold and night was nearing.
The three men found two steaming ‘metal
cylinders’. It was unexplainable to them
then, but those cylinders were radioactive
strontium 90 rods, which came from a RTG
(Radioisotope thermoelectric generator).
The two radioactive isotopes were
recovered in 2002 2-3 February .

The three man suffered doses of

around 1-6 grays (Measurement of
radioactivity ) and of the three 1
died and the other two were
dismissed after some time in
hospital, one month and 2 years
respectively . For reference 6 grays
are 50% lethal for most people.
Radiotherapy
Therac - 25
Cancer is a widespread cause of
death in the world.
Radiotherapy was invented and
used for the last 100 years. We
didn’t need to use any scalpels, 4
in 10 cases.
It saved millions, but the Therac -
25 killed a lot as well.
The prescribed doses were
multiplied by orders of
magnitude and killed it’s patients.
The machine was used in the 90s
and it was the first that used
software and hardware together. It
was amazing but due to it’s problem
which was in the code it killed
thousands. The malfunction 54 was
the main problem. When it was
finally fixed in 2000’s the original
company was sued by all the
family’s of the deceased and became
out of use.
Three Mile Island

March 1979 it started and this

infamous accidents prologue was
avoided by a single hair. It was
Level 5 – Accident with Wider
Consequences on the INES
scale.
It was caused by a failed pump in
TMI-2 and unmaintained
equipment and the officials
mistakes.
There were a lot of problems with the
plant itself so it took them years to fix
up the power plant to it’s old shine,
even the only the TMI-1 was operating,
which stopped of in 2019. Initially it was
covered up as much as possible when
the US president got involved it was
starting to resolve itself from more
aspects.
This accident cause so much stress in
the public because of the 5 mile
restriction for all underaged and
pregnant women around the area of
the reactor.
 The infamous - Chernobyl

The tale told so many times that

it became cliche but still the most
important. The story of Chernobyl
is truly terrifying.
The failed 4 unit reactor
exploded with steam with enough
force to lift up a 1815 tonne lid of
the nuclear reactor.
This disaster killed hundred of
thousands and contained a city
for the next 5000 years.