How bad was the nuclear accident that Wendall Woodbury reported on?
3089ce3e4c0c3461f437a02abd5cac0c
Wendall Woodbury Wendall J. Woodbury (June 20, 1942 – October 20, 2010) was an American television journalist and news anchor. He spent much of his career as a reporter for WGAL-TV in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, from 1968 until his retirement from broadcast news in 1992 as a feature reporter. He was known for a series of segments called "Wendall's World" while at WGAL. Woodbury was the first television anchor in the United States to report on the Three Mile Island accident as the story broke in 1979.
d890a28c304992028e55166cd2e5f819
Three Mile Island accident The Three Mile Island accident occurred on March 28, 1979, in reactor number 2 of Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station (TMI-2) in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, United States, near Harrisburg. It was the most significant accident in U.S. commercial nuclear power plant history. The incident was rated a five on the seven-point International Nuclear Event Scale: Accident with wider consequences.
1d9f99f305da3e77bac8e3362064f884
Nuclear Power and the Environment Nuclear Power and the Environment, sometimes simply called the Flowers Report, was released in September 1976 and is the sixth report of the UK Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, chaired by Sir Brian Flowers. The report was dedicated to "the Queen's most excellent Majesty." "He was appointed "to advise on matters, both national and international, concerning the pollution of the environment; on the adequacy of research in this field; and the future possibilities of danger to the environment." One of the recommendations of the report was that:
c245d35b57b9c25f2071bbd848c23765
2006 West Bengal train explosion The 2006 West Bengal train disaster was a fatal suspected terrorist explosion on a train travelling between New Jalpaiguri and Haldibari that occurred on 20 November 2006, when the train was in a remote part of West Bengal State, India. Five people were killed, and between fifty and twenty-five were injured, although home secretary Prasad Ranjan Ray says officials believe there may in fact be as many as sixty-six injured. Two passenger cars were damaged. The explosion was due to a still-undetermined cause, but terrorism is suspected. The train was about 550 km from Kolkata.
5eec3e95620e36252975096cb47449a5
2017 Finsbury Park attack On 19 June 2017, a van was driven into pedestrians in Finsbury Park, London, injuring at least eight people. This occurred near the Muslim Welfare House, 100 yard from Finsbury Park Mosque. A man who had earlier collapsed and was receiving first aid died at the scene.
b2b3e59c4e8ba420140604c03914ca31
Environmental disaster An ecological disaster is a disaster to the  environment due to human activity, which distinguishes it from the concept of a natural disaster. It is also distinct from intentional acts of war such as nuclear bombings.
25dc93068fc411e2e2046b2649e2ea26
Aberfan Disaster Tribunal The Tribunal of Inquiry into the Aberfan Disaster (the Aberfan Disaster Tribunal), chaired by Lord Justice Edmund Davies, was established in 1966 to inquire into the causes of and circumstances of the Aberfan disaster. The report of the tribunal placed the main blame for the disaster on the National Coal Board.
91ca1e0d1fd46c97ddea9f0364e8de2e
Stratford tube crash The Stratford tube crash occurred on 8 April 1953, on the Central line of the London Underground. 12 people died and 46 were injured as a result of a rear-end collision in a tunnel, caused by driver error after a signal failure. This was the worst accident involving trains on the London Underground until the Moorgate tube crash in 1975. A similar accident at exactly the same location, with less serious consequences, occurred in 1946, before the line was open for public traffic; one railwayman died.
16041a12b287905a9ee0872e6c2286f6
2012 United Kingdom fuel crisis In March 2012 Unite trades union warned it was considering a strike over health and safety standards. Unite represents around 2,000 tanker drivers, who deliver fuel to 90% of Britain's forecourts. Although no strike took place, Government action precipitated panic-buying and a woman was very seriously injured after following a minister's advice to store extra petrol.
0d1312840e7ff9656fbf98e499a2b4af
Chernobyl Exclusion Zone The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Zone of Alienation (Ukrainian: Зона відчуження Чорнобильської АЕС, "zona vidchuzhennya Chornobyl's'koyi AES" , Russian: Зона отчуждения Чернобыльской АЭС, "zona otchuzhdenya Chernobyl'skoyi AES" ) is an officially designated exclusion zone around the site of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor disaster. It is also commonly known as the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, the 30 Kilometre Zone, or simply The Zone (Ukrainian: Чорнобильська зона, "Chornobyl's'ka zona" , Russian: Чернобыльская зона, "Chernobyl'skaya zona" ).
a277c20bb7c70eeec14b38f006849433
Meopham air disaster The Meopham Air Disaster occurred on 21 July 1930 when a Junkers F.13ge flying from Le Touquet to Croydon with two crew and four passengers crashed near Meopham, Kent, with the loss of all on board. The report of the inquiry into the accident was made public, the first time in the United Kingdom that an accident report was published.
39848fef8a72017d21eb868712072b57
1989 Newcastle earthquake The 1989 Newcastle earthquake occurred in Newcastle, New South Wales on Thursday, 28 December. The shock measured 5.6 on the Richter magnitude scale and was one of Australia's most serious natural disasters, killing 13 people and injuring more than 160. The damage bill has been estimated at A$ 4 billion (including an insured loss of about $1 billion).
30d3ce8a93ae2a6659cbcefe3c0ea297
Atherstone rail accident The Atherstone rail accident happened near Atherstone railway station in the small hours of the morning of 16 November 1860, and killed 10 people.
802ccaee085258562fe8138207a4898e
Nuclear Accident Magnitude Scale The Nuclear Accident Magnitude Scale (NAMS) is a scale to measure the severity of a nuclear accident. It was proposed by the British nuclear safety expert David Smythe in 2011 as a response to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, where the conventional International Nuclear Event Scale was used in a confusing manner. Furthermore, it wants to bridge the various shortcomings of INES.
4de762acd6d47d165bf5782c8f72f7b2
Anti-nuclear movement in Russia The anti-nuclear movement in Russia began in the wake of the disaster at the Chernobyl reactor in 1986. During the most active phase of the anti-nuclear movement, from 1988 to 1992, construction of over 100 nuclear projects were prevented on the territory of the Soviet Union. Also, the economic troubles of the 1990s led to a reduction in the number of construction projects. This deprived the anti-nuclear movement of its raison d’être. At the same time, it too was affected by financial difficulties, in particular the lack of donations, which continues to be an issue today. Since the 2000s the Russian Government embarked on highly pro-nuclear policy, with plans to invest billions of dollars in developing the nuclear industry, which leaves the movement with big challenges.
f02207d2bbb4a8dac1d86d63747c8fae
Weedon rail crashes Weedon, Northamptonshire on the West Coast Main Line has been the site of two serious derailments in 1915 and 1951, killing 10 and 15 people respectively.
b78d6a3e999a0923283be034100de6cf
Nuclear weapon A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or from a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear bomb). Both bomb types release large quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter. The first test of a fission ("atomic") bomb released an amount of energy approximately equal to 20,000 tonTNT . The first thermonuclear ("hydrogen") bomb test released energy approximately equal to 10 e6tonTNT . A thermonuclear weapon weighing little more than 2400 lb can release energy equal to more than 1.2 e6tonTNT . A nuclear device no larger than traditional bombs can devastate an entire city by blast, fire, and radiation. Since they are weapons of mass destruction, the proliferation of nuclear weapons is a focus of international relations policy.
5b80ad2f34eccab5b2b76fb16cd4b45b
Camelford water pollution incident The Camelford water pollution incident involved the accidental contamination of the drinking water supply to the town of Camelford, Cornwall, in July 1988. Twenty tonnes of aluminium sulphate was inadvertently added to the water supply, raising the concentration to 3,000 times the admissible level. As the aluminium sulphate broke down it produced several tonnes of sulphuric acid which "stripped a cocktail of chemicals from the pipe networks as well as lead and copper piping in people’s homes." Many people who came into contact with the contaminated water experienced a range of short-term health effects, and many victims suffered long-term effects whose implications remained unclear as of 2012 . There has been no rigorous examination or monitoring of the health of the victims since the incident, which is Britain's worst mass poisoning event. Inquests on people who died many years later found very high levels of aluminium in the brain. Dame Barbara Clayton led a Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution enquiry into the incident.
3ba102d8679d3874039d2cab798d7525
Tom Tuohy Thomas Tuohy CBE (7 November 1917 – 12 March 2008) was deputy to the general manager at the Windscale nuclear facility when a major fire erupted on 10 October 1957. He was the leading participant in efforts to put out the fire which was emitting radioactive contamination into the air, and so played a key role in minimising Britain's worst nuclear disaster.
a3dd2a77cfa0e41d2a24e6f5c510663e
Birmingham pub bombings The Birmingham pub bombings (also known as the Birmingham bombings) occurred on 21 November 1974, when bombs exploded in two public houses in central Birmingham, England. The explosions killed 21 people and injured 182 others.
a3bf1bcdc23816b101983b348afb290c
Accident rating of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster Accident rating of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster
29d6cea5277ee4bb4fdae8216e295727
Operation Woodlark Operation Woodlark, also known as the Jørstadelva Bridge sabotage, was an operation carried out on 13 January 1945 by members of the Norwegian Independent Company 1 during World War II. The operation bore the code-name "Woodlark". The aim was to blow up a railway bridge in order to disrupt the Nordland Line railway in Snåsa, Norway. Six hours after the bridge had been destroyed, a military troop train unaware of the sabotage derailed and crashed into the river below, killing 70–80 people (among them two Norwegians) and injuring some 100 more. It remains the single most deadly rail incident ever in Norway.