Biggest Nuclear Accidents

Although nuclear energy is said to be safe and clean, past accidents show that the opposite is true.

With advancing technology, the use of radioactive materials has become increasingly widespread in many fields, such as defense, medicine, energy, and industry. Among these, nuclear power plants left their mark on the 20th century. Since 1954, when the first reactor was built, the possibility of a nuclear accident has been discussed. Although nuclear power is said to be safe, deviations from normal radiation levels and major nuclear accidents have caused great damage to our planet in the last hundred years. Certain scales have been defined to determine the damage caused by these nuclear accidents. Just like the Richter scale we use to measure the magnitude of earthquakes, nuclear disasters are categorized based on the International Nuclear and Radiological Events Scale (INES). Each level of the INES scale defines accidents that are ten times more destructive than the previous one. According to the INES scale, levels 4, 5, 6, and 7 are the most severe accidents, which are rare. Levels 1, 2, and 3 describe minor accidents that occur during routine radiation use. Let’s take a closer look at these nuclear accidents and their negative impacts on the world.