There have been comparatively few fatalities associated with nuclear power plant accidents. Sovacool has reported that worldwide there have been 99 accidents at nuclear power plants from 1952 to 2009 (defined as incidents that either resulted in the loss of human life or more than US$50,000 of property damage, the amount the US federal government uses to define major energy accidents that must be reported), totaling US$20.5 billion in property damages. Social scientist and energy policy expert, Benjamin K. 6,000 people were involved in cleaning Chernobyl and 10,800 square miles (28,000 km 2) were contaminated. Approximately 350,000 people were forcibly resettled away from these areas soon after the accident. Both are reasonable projections with different meanings. These are two very different concepts and lead to the huge variations in estimates. Independent studies statistically calculate fatal cancers from dose and population, even though the number of additional cancers will be below the epidemiological threshold of measurement of around 1%. The UN, DOE and industry agencies all use the limits of the epidemiological resolvable deaths as the cutoff below which they cannot be legally proven to come from the disaster. Industry, UN and DOE agencies claim low numbers of legally provable cancer deaths will be traceable to the disaster. Estimates of eventual deaths from cancer are highly contested. Other studies have estimated as many as over a million eventual cancer deaths from Chernobyl. Radioactive fallout from the accident was concentrated in areas of Belarus, Ukraine and Russia. ![]() A study published in 2005 by the World Health Organization estimates that there may eventually be up to 4,000 additional cancer deaths related to the accident among those exposed to significant radiation levels. The accident killed approximately 30 people directly and damaged approximately $7 billion of property. ![]() ![]() The worst nuclear accident to date is the Chernobyl disaster which occurred in 1986 in Ukraine. The world's first nuclear reactor meltdown was the NRX reactor at Chalk River Laboratories, Ontario, Canada in 1952. The Chernobyl nuclear power plant is in the background. The abandoned city of Pripyat, Ukraine, following the Chernobyl disaster. In 2020, the WHO stated that "Lessons learned from past radiological and nuclear accidents have demonstrated that the mental health and psychosocial consequences can outweigh the direct physical health impacts of radiation exposure." " The IAEA maintains a website reporting recent nuclear accidents. Serious radiation incidents/accidents include the Kyshtym disaster, the Windscale fire, the radiotherapy accident in Costa Rica, the radiotherapy accident in Zaragoza, the radiation accident in Morocco, the Goiania accident, the radiation accident in Mexico City, the Samut Prakan radiation accident, and the Mayapuri radiological accident in India. Nuclear power accidents can involve loss of life and large monetary costs for remediation work. Serious nuclear power plant accidents include the Fukushima nuclear disaster (2011), the Chernobyl disaster (1986), the Three Mile Island accident (1979), and the SL-1 accident (1961). Fifty-seven accidents or severe incidents have occurred since the Chernobyl disaster, and about 60% of all nuclear-related accidents/severe incidents have occurred in the USA. As of 2014, there have been more than 100 serious nuclear accidents and incidents from the use of nuclear power. Technical measures to reduce the risk of accidents or to minimize the amount of radioactivity released to the environment have been adopted, however human error remains, and "there have been many accidents with varying impacts as well near misses and incidents". The impact of nuclear accidents has been a topic of debate since the first nuclear reactors were constructed in 1954 and has been a key factor in public concern about nuclear facilities. ![]() Examples include lethal effects to individuals, large radioactivity release to the environment, reactor core melt." The prime example of a "major nuclear accident" is one in which a reactor core is damaged and significant amounts of radioactive isotopes are released, such as in the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 and Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011. Ī nuclear and radiation accident is defined by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as "an event that has led to significant consequences to people, the environment or the facility. Safety-critical systems were found to be undamaged by the earthquake. The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant, a Japanese nuclear plant with seven units, the largest single nuclear power station in the world, was completely shut down for 21 months following an earthquake in 2007.
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