Climate impact on childhood diet may undermine food security efforts, Remote Control review: Fusing Ghanaian stories with a sci-fi thriller. On 10th October 1957, Pile 1 at Windscale in West Cumbria was on fire. Windscale (October 10, 1957) ... over the long term, radioactive fallout from the Windscale fire may have caused some 240 cases of cancer. At Windscale, the British government subsequently admitted it had deliberately covered up the seriousness of the accidents to keep its nuclear weapons programme on track. The fire at Windscale - now Sellafield - resulted in a major rethink of nuclear power safety in the UK, When you subscribe we will use the information you provide to send you these newsletters. Over 60 years ago, Britain flirted with a nuclear catastrophe that could have resulted in a tragedy worse than Chernobyl. The Windscale nuclear disaster was a military engineered cover since even before construction began. Iodine-131 and other harmful radioactive particles contaminated farms in the surrounding countryside and cow’s milk was taken from a massive 500km area next to Sellafield. The Manhattan Project was a collaborative effort from United States, United Kingdom, and Canada. The immune system: can you improve your immune age? The Windscale Fire seems like it had the potential to become a much more serious incident due to actions taken in trying to get the reactor under control. The health benefits of sunlight: Can vitamin D help beat covid-19? It had been hoped the United States was about to begin sharing its nuclear secrets with UK atomic agency scientists and it was thought that any embarrassing revelations about Windscale could put this at risk. Earlier that week on October 7, Windscale workers were carrying out a procedure on the reactor’s graphite core known as annealing. To their delight, this plan was enough to stave the fire of the oxygen that it needed and water was hosed through holes into the reactor. A catastrophic meltdown was averted by the heroic actions of a few people but a subsequent 'cover up' by authorities meant they were not properly recognised for their efforts. 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The terrifying 1957 incident at the Windscale nuclear plant spewed radioactive dust into the surrounding Cumbria countryside and was subsequently hushed up by paranoid authorities, Our free email newsletter sends you the biggest headlines from news, sport and showbiz. During the post-WWII nuclear arms race, nations worldwide amped up their nuclear energy production to use not only for power, but for weapons as well. The report blamed "an error of judgement" by the Windscale workers for the crisis and Prime Minister Harold Macmillan ordered that it not be released to the public. [3] It all started with a routine annealing process that was carried out to regulate the levels of Wigner energy stored in the graphite moderators. “We saw to our complete horror, four channels of fuel glowing bright cherry red”, he recounted. In Chernobyl's case it was the sky-high radiation readings from as far away as Scandinavia and Germany that led the Soviets to admit what had happened. The Windscale Nuclear Disaster. A fire and subsequent cover-up that sparked public anger led to a 14-year shutdown of the Monju Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor in Tsuruga, Fukui prefecture, west of Tokyo. Tuohy finally made the decision to shut off all cooling and ventilation systems to stop air from entering the building. It throws a revealing new light on an important event of fifty years ago and on questions of secrecy and responsibility. Across the north-west of the country radioactive milk was poured away for several weeks. During World War II, the Manhattan Project as a defense against Germany ignited the United Kingdom's involvement in nuclear fission as a military weapon. On October 10 1957, uranium fuel at the Windscale plant in Cumbria overheated and caught fire, setting in motion a terrifying series of events. It was diluted a thousand fold and dumped into the Irish Sea leaving it partially contaminated. While you read this book have an internet connection available & do searches on: Windscale; Graphite Reactor Design; and Reactor Fire. including the accident), only 14 of the workers concerned in the accident exceeded the maximum permissible level. Does the coronavirus spread more through the air than on surfaces? They were installed at great expense and with long delays to the project and the towers were later dubbed “Cockcroft’s Folly”. At Windscale, the British government subsequently admitted it had deliberately covered up the seriousness of the accidents to keep its nuclear weapons program on track. The Windscale Fire. 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Governments tried hard to cover up what happened. In 1957, one of the two reactors built at Windscale was destroyed by fire, in the world's first major nuclear accident. Once the Penney Report was finally published, some thirty years after the accident, the public were made aware of the full extent of the crisis. Tom Hughes and another control room operator went to the charge face of the reactor wearing protective equipment and were astonished with their findings. The cover-up that followed, in which an official inquiry failed to reveal the true extent of contamination, is now part of history. Instead of cooling the reactor down, inaccurate temperature readings showed that the process had not been successfully completed and was put into action a second time - a decision that was to prove a terrible mistake. The British government officially estimates that up to 30 people developed thyroid cancer after hazardous radioactive waste polluted the surrounding countryside. You can unsubscribe at any time. Our. Control rods were withdrawn, allowing the nuclear fission process to restart and causing the graphite within the reactor to rise to dangerously high temperatures. The fire took place in Unit 1 of the two-pile Windscale facility on the northwest coast of England in Cumberland (now Sellafield, Cumbria).The two piles had been built as part of the British atomic bomb project. B This article has been rated as B-Class on the project's quality scale. But radioactive pollution from the incident would have been far higher had it not been for the foresight of one man. Only 20,000 curies of radioactive materials were released into the environment thanks to their presence - far less than at Chernobyl and Fukushima. When World War I… The move was deemed highly risky which as it had the potential to cause an explosive reaction with molten metal. In October, the graphite core of Pile 1 caught fire, initially without its operators realizing there was a problem. Eleven tons of uranium were ablaze and the plant’s workers were increasingly desperate. Nobody, I mean, nobody, can believe how hot it could possibly be”, one eyewitness would later say. Later studies on the release of radioactive material as a result of the Windscale fire revealed that much of the contamination had resulted from such radiation leaks before the fire. Electricity production was a convenient cover for producing nuclear bomb grade plutonium. The Windscale plant consisted of two gas-cooled nuclear reactors. Now, 50 years after the fire at Windscale in Cumbria, UK, on 10 and 11 October 1957, it has emerged that the resulting radioactive cloud spread contamination over large parts of Europe, much further than previously admitted. Akasha Purohit and Kelly Meehan HISTORY The Windscale Fire took place at the Windscale nuclear processing plant in Cumberland, which is known as Cumbria today. Macmillan realised that if the American Congress knew that the fire had been the result of reckless decisions taken to try to produce the-H bomb, they … Also, view the photos. Windscale fire is part of WikiProject Fire Service, which collaborates on fire service-related subjects on Wikipedia.If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion. On Friday, 11 October, the fire had reached temperatures of up to 1,300 centigrade. Existing subscribers, please log in with your email address to link your account access. Built in 1950 with the prior approval of Winston Churchill, it was hoped that the Windscale project could eventually help develop a chillingly destructive hydrogen bomb. [1] The accident ranked a high level of 5 on the International Nuclear Event Scale. The Windscale fire of 10 October 1957 was the worst nuclear accident in Great Britain's history, and one of the worst in the world, ranked in severity at level 5 out of a possible 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale. “It was white hot, it was just white hot. The Windscale Fire remains the UK’s worst ever nuclear accident - but its chilling memory is mostly consigned to the history books. Unlike Cheronbyl, the site was used purely for military purposes and produced enriched uranium to be used for Britain’s nuclear warheads. The search for the origin of life: From panspermia to primordial soup. Windscale was home to the UK's atomic bomb project and secrecy shrouded the facility in the years of Cold War paranoia. Published: June 1, 2011. It says something for how Britain's nuclear establishment worked from the start that when Windscale No1 Pile caught fire in October 1957, it was hushed up … Carly Gillis. Science with Sam explains. During Windscale's construction, physicist Sir John Cockcroft insisted that the plant be fitted with massive ugly, chimney stacks which would help filter out leaks.