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Map of contaminated areas around the plant (22 March – 3 April). Map of detected radioactivity as of April 2011 Map of detected radioactivity as of March 2012 Fukushima dose rate comparison to other incidents and standards, with graph of recorded radiation levels and specific accident events from 11 to 30 March in 2011.
Globally, there have been at least 99 (civilian and military) recorded nuclear power plant accidents 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 nuclear energy accidents that must be reported), totaling US$20.5 billion in property damages.
The Chernobyl nuclear power plant is in the background. The world's first nuclear reactor meltdown was the NRX reactor at Chalk River Laboratories, Ontario, Canada in 1952. [22] The worst nuclear accident to date is the Chernobyl disaster which occurred in 1986 in the Ukrainian SSR, now Ukraine.
Fighting around nuclear power plants has repeatedly raised fears of a nuclear catastrophe during three years of war, particularly in a country where many vividly remember the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, which killed at least 30 people and spewed radioactive fallout over much of the Northern Hemisphere.
Erosion of the 150-millimetre-thick (5.9 in) carbon steel reactor head at Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Plant, in Oak Harbor, Ohio, USA, in 2002, caused by a persistent leak of borated water The Hanford Site, in Benton County, Washington, USA, represents two-thirds of America's high-level radioactive waste by volume.
The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident was originally rated as INES 5, but then upgraded to INES 7 (the highest level) when the events of units 1, 2 and 3 were combined into a single event and the combined release of radiological material was the determining factor for the INES rating.
September 29, 1957 – Kyshtym disaster, Mayak nuclear waste storage tank explosion at Chelyabinsk. Two hundred plus fatalities and this figure is a conservative estimate; 270,000 people were exposed to dangerous radiation levels. Over thirty small communities had been removed from Soviet maps between 1958 and 1991. [13] (INES level 6). [14]
It has been suggested that some plants and animals are able to adapt to the increased radiation levels present in and around Chernobyl. [ 40 ] [ 86 ] Further research is needed to assess the long-term health effects of elevated ionizing radiation from Chernobyl on flora and fauna.