Historic Nuclear Accidents
Historic Nuclear Accidents is a structured history dataset with 15 entries. Its fields include Accident, Location, Year. The source values are preserved as a structured reference table.
Every row is shown below and is also available as CSV, JSON, or Excel.
Dataset details
- Table scope
- All 15 rows
- Fields
- 6 columns
- Source
- Community curated
- Data updated
- Apr 9, 2026
Included fields: Accident, Location, Year, INES Level, Cause, and 1 more.
The table contains every record in this dataset; the same records are available in each download format.
Preview observations
- Year span
- 1952 to 2011
- Across 15 preview rows
- INES Level range
- 0 to 7
- Across 15 preview rows
Useful for
- Comparing Accident, Location, and Year across history entries
- Building reference tables, charts, or analyses from 15 downloadable records
Accident↕ | Location↕ | Year↕ | INES Level↕ | Cause↕ | Notes↕ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Chernobyl disaster | Pripyat, Ukraine (USSR) | 1986 | 7 | Reactor test gone wrong, design flaws | RBMK reactor 4 exploded, released massive radioactive plume across Europe, 30 direct deaths and thousands of later cancers |
Fukushima Daiichi disaster | Okuma, Japan | 2011 | 7 | Tsunami knocked out cooling | Tohoku earthquake tsunami flooded backup generators, three reactor cores melted, 150,000 evacuated |
Kyshtym disaster | Mayak, USSR | 1957 | 6 | Cooling failure in waste tank | Liquid waste tank exploded at plutonium plant, contaminated 20,000 square km, Soviet cover-up for decades |
Windscale fire | Cumbria, UK | 1957 | 5 | Graphite core fire | Britain's worst nuclear accident, released iodine-131 over the UK, milk from nearby farms destroyed |
Three Mile Island accident | Pennsylvania, USA | 1979 | 5 | Partial meltdown, operator error | Reactor 2 core partial meltdown, no direct deaths but devastated US nuclear industry and public confidence |
Goiania accident | Goiania, Brazil | 1987 | 5 | Abandoned radiotherapy source | Scavengers broke open cesium-137 capsule from abandoned clinic, 4 deaths, 249 contaminated |
SL-1 accident | Idaho, USA | 1961 | 4 | Prompt critical excursion | Experimental US Army reactor exploded during maintenance, killed all 3 operators, only fatal US reactor accident |
Tokaimura criticality | Tokaimura, Japan | 1999 | 4 | Workers mixed too much uranium | Fuel plant workers caused criticality accident by bypassing safety procedures, 2 deaths from radiation |
Saint-Laurent A1 meltdown | Saint-Laurent, France | 1969 | 4 | Fuel loading error | France's most serious civil nuclear incident, 50 kg of uranium melted inside reactor |
Chalk River NRX accident | Ontario, Canada | 1952 | 5 | Operator errors and valve failures | First major reactor accident in history, partial core meltdown, Jimmy Carter helped with cleanup |
Lucens reactor accident | Lucens, Switzerland | 1969 | 4 | Loss of coolant, partial meltdown | Experimental underground reactor suffered partial meltdown, cavern sealed for decades |
Church Rock uranium spill | New Mexico, USA | 1979 | 0 | Tailings dam breach | Largest radioactive spill in US history, 1,000 tons of waste into Puerco River, largely ignored at the time |
Mayak 1967 Lake Karachay | Mayak, USSR | 1967 | 5 | Dust storm of dried waste | Wind picked up radioactive dust from drought-exposed Lake Karachay and contaminated 2,700 sq km |
Vinca criticality accident | Vinca, Yugoslavia | 1958 | 4 | Unintended criticality in research reactor | 6 researchers irradiated, one died, first bone marrow transplant to treat radiation victims |
Buenos Aires RA-2 accident | Buenos Aires, Argentina | 1983 | 4 | Operator restructured core | Operator caused criticality excursion while reconfiguring fuel, died two days later |
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