Uranium processing plant in Tokai Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Uranium processing plant in Tokai - Essay Example criticality (a limited uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction), which continued intermittently for 20 hours.† IAEA remarked the cause as â€Å"human error and serious breaches of security principles† (World Nuclear Association) The accident took place when three workers were fabricating fuel for the JOYO experimental fast breeder reactor. It contained 18.8 percent enriched uranium. Then it was for the first time in three years that this reactor was fuelled and it was also found out that these workers were not professionally qualified and trained for operating such a reactor. The concentration of uranium was in excess inside the reactor which led to the accident and eventually, radioactive products were set out in the building. The workers who were near to the reactor showed symptoms like breathing trouble, nausea etc soon after the incident. The urgency lasted for around 20 hours. The sole cause of the accident was a critical error from the workers, that is, they filled a wrong concentration of uranium nitrate in the tank. The Chernobyl disaster of 1986 which is known as world’s largest nuclear disaster is also said to have occurred due to human errors. A commission of the USSR state committee attributed the flaws to the unscientific design and management of the power plant. The direct cause was similar to that of the Tokai accident. This accident also happened when some inexperienced hands involved in the maintenance of the reactor IV in the power plant. The Three Mile Island disaster which took place in 1979 was also an aftermath of human errors (The Japan Times). Blemishes in the user interface engineering were cited as the cardinal cause for the disaster. This directed to an incorrect understanding of the valve status. This provided another entry to the list of nuclear disasters. In all these cases, it can be noticed that human errors turned out to be the paramount antecedent for the mishaps. It is a known fact that tiny glitches can lead to behemoth