The Severe Reactor Accidents of Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima - The Risks of Nuclear Energy Technology - page 193

Table 9.1 INES classification of the most severe nuclear reactor accidents
Reactor Windscale Three Mile Island Chernobyl Fukushima Daiichi

INES-classification Level 5 Level 5 Level 7 Level 7

Level 6: Serious accident
- Classified: impact on people and environment, significant release of radioactiv-
ity to require planned countermeasures, e.g. Kyshtym disaster at Mayak, Russia.
A failed cooling system at a military nuclear waste reprocessing facility caused a
steam explosion which led to release of 70-80 tons of highly radioactive
material into the environment.

Level 7: Major accident
- Classified: impact on people and environment
Major release of radioactive material with wide spread health and environ-
mental effects requiring planned and extended countermeasures.
Examples are:
- The Chernobyl disaster in 1986, Ukraine,
- The Fukuschima Daiichi nuclear disaster in 2011, Japan

Following this classifications of the Instrumental Nuclear and Radiological
Event Scale (INES) the severe accidents of Windscale, Three Mile Island,
Chenobyl and Fukushima are listed in Table 9.1 .

References

1. Ireland JR et al (1981) Three Mile Island and multiple-failure accidents. Los Alamos Sci 3
(Summer/Fall):75-85
2. Knief RA (1992) Nuclear engineering, theory and technology of commercial nuclear power.
Hemisphere Publishing Corporation, Washington, DC
3. Kemeny JG (1979) Report of The President's commission on the accident at Three Mile
Island: the need for change: the legacy of TMI. The Commission, Washington, DC. ISBN
0935758003. http://www.threemileisland.org/downloads/188.pdf
4. Chernobyl (1995) Ten years on. Radiological and health impact. Nuclear Energy Agency
(OECD), Paris Cedex
5. Chernobyl (2002) Update of Chernobyl: ten years on. Nuclear Energy Agency (OECD), Paris
Cedex
6. (2011) Chernobyl: answers to long standing questions. International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA), Vienna. http://161.5.1.75/newscenter/focus/chernobyl/faqs.shtml
7. (2011) Deaths due to the Chernobyl disaster. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_due_to_the_
Chernobyl_disaster
8. Chernobyl disaster. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/chernobyl_disaster
9. Shikalov N (1991) Kurchatov Institute Moscow. Personal communication
10. Kovan D (2011) Chernobyl 25 years on: time for a giant leap forward. Nucl News (Am Nucl
Soc) 54(5):57