Tokaimura nuclear accident

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Coordinates: 36°28′47.00″N 140°33′13.24″E / 36.4797222°N 140.5536778°E / 36.4797222; 140.5536778

Tōkai-mura
Location of the Tokaimura nuclear accident

There have been two Tokaimura nuclear accidents at the nuclear facility at Tōkai, Ibaraki.

  1. On 11 March 1997, a small explosion in a Dōnen plant.
  2. On 30 September 1999, a serious criticality accident in a JCO plant.

In 1997

See also: Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel Development Corporation

The first Tokaimura nuclear accident was the accident which occurred on 11 March 1997, in a nuclear reprocessing plant of the Dōnen (Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel Development Corporation). Another name is the Dōnen accident (動燃事故 (Dōnen jiko)).

On the night of 11 March 1997, a small explosion occurred in a nuclear reprocessing plant of the Dōnen. In this accident, approximately 40 workers were exposed to radiation.

In 1999

The second and more serious Tokaimura nuclear accident (Japanese: Tōkai-mura JCO-rinkai-jiko) indicates the nuclear disaster which occurred on 30 September 1999,[1][2][3] resulting in two deaths.[4] It was the worst civilian nuclear radiation accident in Japan prior to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster of 2011.

The criticality accident occurred in an uranium reprocessing facility operated by JCO (formerly Japan Nuclear Fuel Conversion Co.), a subsidiary of Sumitomo Metal Mining Co. in the village of Tōkai, Naka District, Ibaraki Prefecture.[5]

The accident occurred as three workers were preparing a small batch of fuel for the Jōyō experimental fast breeder reactor, using uranium enriched to 18.8% with the fissile radionuclide (radioisotope) known as U‑235 (with the remainder being the fissionable-only U‑238). It was JCO's first batch of fuel for that reactor in three years, and no proper qualification and training requirements appear to have been established to prepare those workers for the job. At around 10:35 a.m., a precipitation tank reached critical mass when its fill level, containing about 16 kilograms of uranium, reached about 40 liters (about 35 pounds and 11 US gallons respectively).[5]

Details

Criticality was reached upon the technicians adding a seventh bucket of an aqueous uranyl nitrate solution to the tank. The nuclear fission chain reaction became self-sustaining and began to emit intense gamma and neutron radiation. The technicians, one of whom had his body draped over the tank, observed a blue flash (possibly Cherenkov radiation) and gamma-radiation alarms sounded.[4][6] The two technicians closest to the tank immediately experienced pain, nausea, difficulty breathing, and other symptoms. The technician closest to the tank lost consciousness in the decontamination room a few minutes later and began to vomit.[7] There was no explosion, but fission products (fission fragments of U‑235 with atomic masses typically around 95 and 137, such as yttrium‑94 and barium‑140) were progressively released inside the building.

Being a wet process with an intended liquid result, the water promoted the chain reaction by serving as a neutron moderator, whereby neutrons emitted from fissioned nuclei are slowed so they are more readily absorbed by neighboring nuclei, inducing them to fission in turn.

The criticality continued intermittently for about 20 hours. As the solution boiled vigorously, steam bubbles attenuated the liquid water's action as a neutron moderator (see Void coefficient ) and the solution lost criticality. However, the reaction resumed as the solution cooled and the voids disappeared. The following morning, workers permanently stopped the reaction by draining water from a cooling jacket surrounding the precipitation tank since that water was serving as a neutron reflector. A boric acid solution (boron being a good neutron absorber) was then added to the tank to ensure that the contents remained subcritical. These operations exposed 27 workers to radioactivity.[5]

The direct cause of the criticality accident was workers putting uranyl nitrate solution containing about 16 kg of uranium, which exceeded the critical mass for the precipitation tank. The tank was not designed to hold this type of solution and was not configured to prevent criticality.

Evacuation

Five hours after the start of the criticality, evacuation commenced of some 161 people from 39 households within a 350 meter radius from the conversion building. Residents were allowed home two days later after sandbags and other shielding ensured no hazard from residual gamma radiation. Twelve hours after the start of the incident residents within 10 km were asked to stay indoors as a precautionary measure, and this restriction was lifted the following afternoon.[5]

Aftermath

Dozens of emergency workers and nearby residents were hospitalized and hundreds of thousands of others were forced to remain indoors for 24 hours; 39 of the workers were exposed to the radiation.[8] At least 667 workers, emergency responders, and nearby residents were exposed to excess radiation as a result of the accident.[4]

A dose of 50 millisieverts (mSv) is the maximum allowable annual dose for Japanese nuclear workers.[5] For context, 8000 mSv (800 rem) is normally a fatal dose [citation needed] and more than 10,000 mSv is almost invariably fatal [citation needed]. Normal background radiation amounts to an annual exposure of about 3 mSv.[4] There were 56 plant workers whose exposures ranged up to 23 mSv and a further 21 workers received elevated doses when draining the precipitation tank. Seven workers immediately outside the plant received doses estimated at 6–15 mSv (combined neutron and gamma effects).[9] The three operators' doses were far above permissible limits at 3,000, 10,000, and 17,000 mSv; the two receiving the higher doses died several months later.[4] The most severely exposed worker had his body draped over the tank when it went critical. He suffered serious burns to most of his body, experienced severe damage to his internal organs, and had a near-zero white blood cell count.[4]

The cause of the accident was said to be "human error and serious breaches of safety principles", according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.[5]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Timeline: Nuclear plant accidents". BBC News. 11 July 2006. Retrieved 17 March 2011. 
  2. ↑ Charles Scanlon (30 September 2000). "Tokaimura: One year on". BBC News. Retrieved 17 March 2011. 
  3. ↑ "Nuclear accident shakes Japan". BBC News. 30 September 1999. Retrieved 17 March 2011. 
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 Memorial University of Newfoundland: “The Tokaimura Accident (28 September 1999)”
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 Tokaimura Criticality Accident
  6. ↑ Makoto Akashi, Director of Research Center for Radiation Emergency Medicine at Japan’s National Institute of Radiological Sciences: “The Medical Basis for Radiation-Accident Preparedness”, The Parthenon Publishing Group Inc., 2002, which states “All three workers saw a ‘blue flash’ and heard the gamma-radiation monitor alarm” (direct link to Google Book page). And “All three observed the Cherenkov light flash” (direct link to Google Book return).
  7. ↑ International Atomic Energy Agency: “Report on the preliminary fact finding mission following the accident at the nuclear fuel processing facility in Tokaimura, Japan”, 1999 (See External links, below).
  8. ↑ In The Wake of Tokaimura, Japan Rethinks its Nuclear Picture
  9. ↑ http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf37.html

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