List of civilian radiation accidents

This article lists notable civilian accidents involving radioactive materials or involving ionizing radiation from artificial sources such as x-ray tubes and particle accelerators. Accidents related to nuclear power that involve fissile materials are listed at List of civilian nuclear accidents. Military accidents are listed at List of military nuclear accidents.

cope of this article

In listing civilian radiation accidents, the following criteria have been followed:
# There must be well-attested and substantial health damage, property damage or contamination.
# The damage must be related directly to radioactive materials or ionizing radiation from a man-made source, not merely taking place at a facility where such are being used.
# To qualify as "civilian", the operation/material must be principally for non-military purposes.
# The event is not an event involving fissile material or a nuclear reactor.

Before 1950s

*Various dates - No INES level - France - Overexposure of scientists
**Marie Curie (1867–1934) was a Polish-French physicist and chemist. She was a pioneer in the early field of radioactivity, later becoming the first two-time Nobel laureate and the only person with Nobel Prizes in physics and chemistry. Her death in 1934 was from aplastic anemia, almost certainlyFact|date=September 2008 due to massive exposure to radiation in her work, much of which was carried out in a shed with no proper safety measures being taken, as the damaging effects of hard radiation were not generally understood at that time. She was known to carry test tubes full of radioactive isotopes in her pocket, and to store them in her desk drawer, resulting in massive exposure to radiation. She was known to remark on the pretty blue-green light the metals gave off in the dark.
*Various dates - No INES level - various locations - Overexposure of workers
**Luminescent radium was used to paint watches and other items that glowed, but the dangers were largely unknown. The most famous incident is the Radium girls of Orange, New Jersey, but other towns including Ottawa, Illinois experienced contamination of homes and other structures.
*Various dates - No INES Level - Colorado, USA - Contamination
**Radium mining and manufacturing left a number of Denver, Colorado streets contaminated. [http://www.denvergov.org/EAC/205617629template3jump.asp]

1950s

*March, 1957 - No INES level - Houston, Texas, USA - Exposure of workers
**Two employees of a company licensed by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission to encapsulate sources for radiographic cameras received radiation burns after being exposed to ¹⁹²Ir powder. The incident was reported in "Look Magazine" in 1961, but investigations published by the Mayo Clinic that same year found few of the radiological injuries claimed in widespread press reports.

1970s

*July 16, 1979 (34th anniversary of the Trinity test) – In Church Rock, New Mexico, the earth/clay dike of a uranium mill's settling/evaporating pond fails. The pond was past its planned and licensed life and had been filled two feet (60 cm) deeper than design, despite evident cracking. The incident drains about 100 million U.S. gallons (380,000 m³) of radioactive liquids and 1,100 short tons (1,000 metric tonnes) of solid wastes, which settle out up to 70 miles (100 km) down the Rio Puerco [http://www.ratical.org/radiation/KillingOurOwn/KOO9.html]
*September 29, 1979 - Tritium leak at "American Atomics" in Tucson, Arizona; at the public school across the street from the plant, $300,000 worth of food is found to be contaminated; chocolate cake had 56 nCi/L; by contrast, the EPA safety limit for drinking water is 20 nCi/L (740 Bq/L) based on consumption of 2 liters per day. [http://www.lbl.gov/ehs/esg/tritium/tritium/TritAppI.html] [http://prop1.org/2000/accident/facts4.htm] [http://www.ratical.org/radiation/KillingOurOwn/KOO10.html] [http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/gen-comm/bulletins/1979/bl79022.html]

1980s

*July 1981 – Lycoming, Nine Mile Point, New York. An overloaded wastewater tank was deliberately flushed into the waste building sub-basement, filling it to a depth of four feet. This caused some of the approximately one hundred fifty fifty-five-gallon drums that were stored there to overturn and spill their contents. Fifty thousand U.S. gallons (190 m³) of lesser-contaminated water was discharged into Lake Ontario. [http://www.disinfo.com/archive/pages/article/id2165/pg1/index.html] [NRC Region 1 augmented inspection team (AIT) inspection report# (50-220/89-90) of the use of the Radwaste building sub-basement as a long term liquid retention facility at Nine Mile Point unit 1.] October 2 1989
*1982 – "International Nutronics" of Dover, New Jersey spilled an unknown quantity of radioactive cobalt solution used to treat gems for color, modify chemicals, and sterilize food and medical supplies. The solution spilled into the Dover sewer system and forced the closure of the plant. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission was only informed of the accident ten months later by a whistleblower. In 1986 International Nutronics was fined $35,000 and one of its top executives was sentenced to probation for failure to report the spill. [http://dcnutrition.com/news/Detail.CFM?RecordNumber=494] [http://www.organicconsumers.org/Irrad/whowantsit.cfm] [http://www.rachel.org/bulletin/pdf/Rachels_Environment_Health_News_1138.pdf]
*1982 – radioactive steel scavenged from a nuclear reactor was melted into rebar and used in the construction of apartment buildings in northern Taiwan, mostly in Taipei, from 1982 through 1984. Over 2,000 apartment units and shops were suspected as having been built with the materials. [http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2003/09/09/2003067098] At least 10,000 people are known to have been exposed to long-term low-level irradiation as a result, with at least 40 deaths due to cancer. [http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/archives/2001/04/29/0000083627] In 1985, the Taiwanese Atomic Energy Commission covered up the discovery of high levels of radiation in an apartment building by blaming a dentist operating an imaging machine. However, in the summer of 1992, a utility worker for the Taiwanese state-run electric utilily Taipower brought a Geiger counter to his apartment to learn more about the device, and discovered that his apartment was contaminated. [http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/archives/2001/04/29/0000083627] Despite awareness of the problem, owners of some of the buildings known to be contaminated have continued to rent apartments out to tenants (in part because selling the units is illegal), and as of at least 2003 and likely to the present, no coordinated effort has been made to track down the remaining affected structures, and the Taiwan AEC has harassed medical researchers looking into the consequences. [http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/archives/2001/04/29/0000083627] It is interesting that some researchers from Taiwan claimed that the gamma rays from the cobalt-60 had a beneficial effect upon the health of the humans [W.L Chen "et. al", "Health Physics", 2003, 84, S175-176] .
*December 6, 1983 – Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, A local resident salvaged materials from a discarded radiation therapy machine carrying 6,000 pellets of ⁶⁰Co. The dismantling and transport of the material led to severe contamination of his truck; when the truck was scrapped, it in turn contaminated another 5,000 metric tonnes of steel with an estimated 300 Ci (11 TBq) of activity. This material was sold for kitchen or restaurant table legs and building materials some of which was sent to the U.S. and Canada; the incident was discovered when a truck delivering contaminated building materials months later to the Los Alamos National Laboratory accidentally drove through a radiation monitoring station. Contamination was later measured on the roads that were used to transport the original damaged radiation source. In some cases pellets were actually found embedded in the roadway. In the state of Sinaloa, 109 houses were condemned due to contaminated building material. This incident prompted the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Customs Service to install radiation detection equipment at all major border crossings. [cite web |url=http://www.window.state.tx.us/border/ch09/cobalto.html |title=El Cobalto |year=1998 |month=July |work=Bordering the Future |publisher=Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts |archiveurl=http://www.webcitation.org/5WJdA3Qgz |archivedate=2008-03-14 ]
*1985 to 1987, Therac-25 was a radiation therapy machine produced by Atomic Energy of Canada Limited. It was involved with at least six known accidents between 1985 and 1987, in which patients were given massive overdoses of radiation, which were in some cases on the order of hundreds of Grays. At least five patients died of the overdoses. These accidents highlighted the dangers of software control of safety-critical systems.
*September 13, 1987 – In the Goiânia accident, scavengers broke open a radiation-therapy machine in an abandoned clinic of Goiânia, Brazil. They sold the kilocurie (40 TBq) ¹³⁷Cs source as a glowing curiosity. Four hundred were contaminated, four died. [http://www.thebulletin.org/issues/2000/mj00/mj00diego.html]
*June 6, 1988 – "Radiation Sterilizers" in Decatur, Georgia, reported a leak of ¹³⁷Cs at their facility. Seventy thousand medical supply containers and milk cartons were recalled. Ten employees were exposed, and three "had enough on them that they contaminated other surfaces," including their homes and cars. [http://www.organicconsumers.org/irrad/SteriGenicsIL.cfm]
*5 February, 1989 Three workers were exposed to gamma rays from the ⁶⁰Co source in a medical products irradiation plant in San Salvador, El Salvador. The most exposed person died while the other two lost limbs. This was a human error accident where a person made the wrong choice to enter the irradiation room. [http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/Pub847_web.pdf]

1990s

*June 24, 1990 – Soreq, Israel An operator at a commercial irradiation facility bypassed the safety systems on the JS6500 sterilizer to clear a jam in the product conveyor area. The one to two minute exposure resulted in a whole body dose estimated at 10 Gy or more. He died 36 days later despite extensive medical care. See "Fool Irradiation" [http://qecc.pnl.gov/presentations/HP_midyear_99/Fool_Irradiation8.pdf] for a discussion of this type of event. [http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/Pub925_web.pdf]
*October 26 1991 – Nesvizh, Belarus An operator at an atomic sterilization facility bypassed the safety systems to clear a jammed conveyor. Upon entering the irradiation chamber he was exposed to an estimated whole body dose of 11 Gy, with some portions of the body receiving upwards of 20 Gy. Prompt intensive medical care managed to keep him alive for 113 days after the accident. [http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PubDetAR.asp?pubId=4712]
*August 31, 1994 – Commerce Township, Michigan David Hahn's experimental reactor was discovered in his mother's back yard. The unshielded reactor exposed his neighborhood to 1,000 times the normal levels of background radiation.
* October 21, 1994 a large ¹³⁷Cs source is stolen by scrap metal scavengers in Tammiku, Estonia. [http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/Pub1053_web.pdf]
*May 1998 – Recycler Acerinox in Cádiz, Spain, unwittingly melts scrap metal containing radioactive sources; the radioactive cloud drifts all the way to Switzerland before being detected. [http://www.thebulletin.org/issues/2000/mj00/mj00diego.html] [http://www.nuclearpolicy.info/publications/scrapmetal.php] (See Acerinox accident.)
* 1999 – A road near Mrima Hill, Kenya was rebuilt using local materials later found to be radioactive. Some workers were exposed to excessive radiation, and many residents of the area were tested for exposure. 2,975 tonsVague|which tons?|date=March 2008 of roadway material were to be dug up to eliminate the hazard. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/484034.stm]

2000s

*February 1, 2000 – The radiation source of a teletherapy unit was stolen from a parking lot in Samut Prakarn, Thailand and dismantled in a junkyard for scrap metal. Workers completely removed the ⁶⁰Co source from the lead shielding, and became ill shortly thereafter. The radioactive nature of the metal and the resulting contamination was not discovered until 18 days later. Seven injuries and three deaths were a result of this incident. [http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/Pub1124_scr.pdf]
*December 2000 – Three woodcutters in the nation of Georgia spent the night beside several "warm" canisters they found deep in the woods and were subsequently hospitalized with severe radiation burns. The canisters were found to contain concentrated ⁹⁰Sr. The disposal team consisted of 25 men who were restricted to 40 seconds' worth of exposure each while transferring the canisters to lead-lined drums. The canisters are believed to have been components of radioisotope thermoelectric generators intended for use as generators for remote lighthouses and navigational beacons, part of a Soviet plan dating back to 1983. [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/3007_dirtybom.html]
*March 11, 2002 – A 2.5 metric tonne ⁶⁰Co gamma source was transported from Cookridge Hospital, Leeds, UK, to Sellafield with defective shielding. As the radiation escaped from the package downwards into the ground, it is not thought that this event caused any injury or disease in either a human or an animal. This event was treated in a serious manner because the defense in depth type of protection for the source had been eroded. If the container had been tipped over in a road crash then a strong beam of gamma rays would have been directed in a direction where it would be likely to irradiate humans. The company responsible for the transport of the source, AEA Technology plc, was fined £250,000 by a British court.
*2003 – Cape of Navarin, Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Russia. A radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) located on the Arctic shore was discovered in a highly degraded state. The level of the exposition dose at the generator surface was as high as 15 R/h; in July 2004 a second inspection of the same RTG showed that gamma radiation emission had risen to 87 R/h and that ⁹⁰Sr had begun to leak into the environment. [http://www.bellona.no/en/international/russia/navy/northern_fleet/incidents/37598.html] In November 2003, a completely dismantled RTG located on the Island of Yuzhny Goryachinsky in the Kola Bay was found. The generator's radioactive heat source was found on the ground near the shoreline in the northern part of the island. [http://www.bellona.no/en/international/russia/navy/northern_fleet/incidents/37598.html]
*September 10 2004 – Yakutia, Russia. Two radioisotope thermoelectric generators were dropped 50 meters onto the tundra at Zemlya Bunge island during an airlift when the helicopter flew into heavy weather. According to the nuclear regulators, the impact compromised the RTGs' external radiation shielding. At a height of 10 meters above the impact site, the intensity of gamma radiation was measured at 4 mSv/hr. [http://www.bellona.no/en/international/russia/navy/northern_fleet/incidents/37598.html]
*2005 – Dounreay, UK. In September, the site's cementation plant was closed when 266 liters of radioactive reprocessing residues were spilled inside containment. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4283610.stm] [http://www.ukaea.org.uk/press/2005/26_09_05.htm] . In October, another of the site's reprocessing laboratories was closed down after nose-blow tests of eight workers tested positive for trace radioactivity. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4350386.stm]
*November 3, 2005 – Haddam, Connecticut, USA. The Connecticut Yankee Atomic Power Company reports that water containing quantities (below safe drinking water limits) of ¹³⁷Cs, ⁶⁰Co, ⁹⁰Sr, and ³H leaked from a spent fuel pond. Independent measurements and review of the incident by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission are due to begin November 7, 2005. [http://adamswebsearch2.nrc.gov/idmws/doccontent.dll?library=PU_ADAMS^PBNTAD01&ID=053080144:2] [http://www.wtnh.com/Global/story.asp?S=4067049&nav=3YeX] [http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-nukeleak.artnov03,0,4128957.story?coll=hc-headlines-local]
*March 11, 2006 – at Fleurus, Belgium, an operator working for the company Sterigenics [http://www.sterigenics.com/] , at a medical equipment sterilization site, entered the irradiation room and remained there for 20 seconds. The room contained a source of ⁶⁰Co which was not in the pool of water. [http://www.sterigenics.com/sterigenics_international/News_Fleurus_Employee_Accident.aspx] Three weeks later, the worker suffered of symptoms typical of an irradiation (vomit, loss of hair, fatigue). One estimate that he was exposed to a dose of between 4.4 and 4.8 Gy due to a malfunction of the control-command hydraulic system maintaining the radioactive source in the pool. The operator spent over one month in a specialized hospital before going back home. Today he still shows after-effects (fatigue) that should attenuate in several months. To protect workers, the federal nuclear control agency AFCN and private auditors from AVN recommended Sterigenics to install a redundant system of security. It is an accident of level 4 on the INES scale. [http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/radevents/2006BELG1.html] [http://www.fanc.fgov.be/fr/news_2006_04_11_dossier_streigenics.htm] [http://www.vrtnieuws.net/nieuwsnet_master/versie2/english/details/060406_nuclear/index.shtml]
*May 5, 2006 – An accidental release of ¹³¹I gas at the Prairie Island Nuclear Power Plant in Minnesota exposed approximately one hundred plant workers to low-level radiation. Most workers received 10 to 20 millirads (0.1-0.2 mSv), about the same as a dental X-ray. The workers were wearing protective gear at the time, and no radiation leaked outside the plant to the surrounding area. [http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/05/09/D8HGDVE02.html]
* Lisa Norris died in 2006 after having been given an overdose of radiation as a result of human error during treatment for a brain tumor at Beatson Oncology Centre in Glasgow (Scotland). [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4691748.stm] [http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,329605510-103690,00.html] [http://www.healthjockey.com/2006/10/19/teen-girl-dies-from-overdose-of-radiation-in-the-hospital/] . The Scottish Executive have published an independent investigation of this case. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/27_10_06_lisa.pdf] . The intended treatment for Lisa Norris was 35 Gy to be delivered by a LINAC machine to the whole of the central nervous system to be delivered in twenty equal fractions of 1.75 Gy, which was to be followed by 19.8 Gy to be delivered to the tumor only (in eleven fractions of 1.8 Gy). In the first phase of the treatment a 58% overdose occurred, and the CNS of Lisa Norris suffered a dose of 55.5 Gy. The second phase of the treatment was abandoned on medical advice, after having lived for some time after the overdose Lisa Norris passed away.
*August 23-24, 2008 — INES Level 3 - Fleurus, Belgium - Nuclear material leak:*A gaseous leak of a radioisotope of iodine, Iodine-131 (¹³¹I), was detected at a large medical radioisotope laboratory, Institut national des Radio-Eléments. Belgian authorities implemented restrictions on use of local farming produce within 5 km of the leak, when higher-than-expected levels of contamination was detected in local grass. The particular isotope of iodine has a half life of 8 days [http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5glGyNkMWfaCgVrofcHS1r4xBO8jA] [http://africa.reuters.com/world/news/usnBRU006721.html] . The European Commission sent out a warning over their ECURIE-alert system on the 29th of August [ [http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/08/1279&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en ECURIE ALERT: Belgian nuclear authorities alert the Commission about measures taken after releases of radioactive iodine] ] . The quantity of radioactivity released into the environment was estimated at 45 GBq I-131, which corresponds to a dose of 160 microsievert (effective dose) for a hypothetical person remaining permanently at the site's enclosure [IAEA NEWS database: [http://www-news.iaea.org/news/topics/topic/default.asp?topicID=874 Iodine-131 release in the environment] ] .

ee also

*International Nuclear Events Scale
*List of disasters
*List of nuclear reactors - a comprehensive annotated list of the world's nuclear reactors
*Radiation
*Nuclear debate
*Nuclear Power
*Nuclear Reactor

References and external links

* [http://schema-root.org/technology/nuclear/power/accidents/ Schema-root.org: Nuclear Power Accidents] 2 topics, both with a current news feed
* [http://www.nrc.gov U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) website] with search function and electronic public reading room
* [http://www.iaea.org International Atomic Energy Agency website] with extensive online library
* [http://www.nuclearsafety.gc.ca Canada's Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC)]
* [http://www.nuclearactive.org/ Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety] Detailed articles on nuclear watchdog activities in the US
* [http://www.world-nuclear.org/education/ne/neap1.htm World Nuclear Association: Radiation Doses] Background on ionizing radiation and doses
* [http://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/phys_agents/ionizing.html Canadian Centre for Occupational Health & Safety] More information on radiation units and doses.
* [http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/radevents/index.html Radiological Incidents Database] Extensive, well-referenced list of radiological incidents.