Nuclear Incidents
A comprehensive database of nuclear accidents, disasters, and significant radiation events throughout history.
Chernobyl Disaster
📅 April 26, 1986
📍 Pripyat, Ukrainian SSR, USSR
The worst nuclear disaster in history. Reactor No. 4 exploded during a safety test, releasing 400x the radiation of the Hiroshima bomb.
Fukushima Daiichi Disaster
📅 March 11, 2011
📍 Okuma, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan
A tsunami caused by the Tohoku earthquake overwhelmed the plant's cooling systems, triggering three simultaneous reactor meltdowns.
Three Mile Island Accident
📅 March 28, 1979
📍 Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, USA
A partial nuclear meltdown at Unit 2, the worst accident in US commercial nuclear history, caused by equipment failure and operator confusion.
Kyshtym Disaster
📅 September 29, 1957
📍 Mayak, Chelyabinsk Oblast, USSR
A chemical explosion at a radioactive waste storage tank at the Mayak nuclear facility contaminated 23,000 km2 of Soviet territory.
Windscale Fire
📅 October 10, 1957
📍 Cumberland, England, UK
A fire in the graphite core of the Windscale Pile No. 1 reactor released radioactive contamination across England and Europe.
Tokaimura Criticality Accident
📅 September 30, 1999
📍 Tokai, Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan
A criticality accident at a uranium fuel processing plant caused by workers improperly mixing fuel, directly killing two workers.
SL-1 Reactor Accident
📅 January 3, 1961
📍 Idaho Falls, Idaho, USA
The first fatal nuclear reactor accident in the United States. A steam explosion killed all three operators when a control rod was manually withdrawn too far.
Goiania Accident
📅 September 13, 1987
📍 Goiania, Brazil
Scavengers broke open an abandoned radiotherapy machine and sold the glowing caesium-137 source, causing Brazil's worst radiological disaster.
Chalk River Accident
📅 December 12, 1952
📍 Chalk River, Ontario, Canada
A partial meltdown at Canada's NRX reactor caused by a series of valve errors and human mistakes, resulting in significant radioactive contamination but no deaths.