FLASH!
NUCLEAR ACCIDENTS:
WHO'S IN CONTROL?
Nuclear Accident List | Nuclear Safety List
Radiation Hazards USA
Depleted Uranium | NucNews
Since the first Atomic bomb exploded at Hiroshima on August 5, 1945, the leading governments of the world, in their struggle for power, have spent billions of dollars for research, production, and implementation of bigger and stronger weapons of mass destruction. What happens when something goes wrong with a nuclear experiment? Accidents like Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and the Rocky Flats, Savannah River, and Hanford nuclear plants have been some of our darkest moments in this century of Star Wars technology. More recently, Japan suffered a nuclear waste fire and explosion. In the U.S., the Department of Energy is investigating 550 sites which allegedly were secretly used for the U.S. nuclear weapons program, unknown by employees and neighbors. There was a huge debate about the Cassini launch of 72.3 lbs. of plutonium into space, and is now great concern about the reliability of the Ballistic Missile Defense system. We have loaded a book from Australia listing 1,054 nuclear accidents (and near-disasters) worldwide between 1945 and 1991. Some of these accidents have made the public aware of the dangers of nuclear fallout.
Former U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary performed a
heroic task of opening up long-closed government files and exposing medical radiation testing and fatally dangerous waste disposal techniques. She fell short, however, in not allowing the fallout from nuclear bomb testing into the studies, and her tenure was short.
Recently, though, the issues of nuclear testing and stockpiles are at long last front page news, and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty are becoming household words. Hopefully this is a sign of growing awareness about our responsibility to "blue-sky" the past so we can begin to heal our wounds.
But at the same time this administration is allowing "subcritical" nuclear tests and the development of new nuclear bombs, despite these historic treaties.
In 1987, we published a "Peace Release" with information about
nuclear accidents which we'd been able to unearth from a variety of resources. Our plan is to bring this list up to date, and ask you, the reader, to help.
PLEASE let us know of any and all verifiable nuclear and military accidents that are not on our (admittedly incomplete) list. We will post articles here and in NucNews archives
Proposition One | NucNews Archives