England’s Windscale Reactor Releases Radiation
At a glance:
- Series: Great Events from History II: Ecology and the Environment Series
- Categories: Science, Environmental Issues, Disasters
- Subcategories: Nuclear Weapons, Power, Radiation, Ecology, Environment, Conservation, Pollution, Toxic Waste
- Curriculum: 20th & 21st Century European History, British History
- Geographical Location: England
- Date: October 10, 1957
Article abstract: A fire in the Windscale Pile number 1 released radioactive iodine, cesium, and strontium into the atmosphere, requiring the confiscation and disposal of milk from two hundred square miles of countryside.
Summary of Event
The Windscale number 1 and number 2 nuclear reactors, built near the village of Seascale on the west coast of England, were designed to convert uranium into plutonium for use in the British nuclear weapons program. The Windscale reactor cores consisted of steel tubes containing uranium fuel interspersed in a fifty-foot...
[The entire page is 2328 words long]
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