An investigation into the Windscale Nuclear Disaster for my IB ESS SL class.

1. WINDSCALE/SELLAFIELD
United Kingdom – 17 October 1957
Megan Kedzlie

2. A DEADLY DREAM
• The use of the A-Bomb to end
WWII had caused a desperate
arms race to begin around the
globe.
• In an effort to join the efforts, the
UK, US, and Canada entered the
Quebec Agreement,
acknowledging their choice to
share information from August
19th, 1945.
• But after Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, the United States
began to exclude the British
scientists from their information,
and soon the tripartite agreement
was dissolved.

3. CONTEXT
• Windscale plant built for UK’s
atomic program in the early
1950’s.
• Project rushed for fears of
“falling behind” in nuclear
armament treaty with USA.
• Based to make plutonium for
British nuclear bombs.
• Windscale Pile 1 was
completed in October 1950,
and Pile 2 completed June
1951
© The Guardian – Permission of Sellafield Ltd.

4. CAUSE OF FIRE
• On the 10th of October
1957, workers in the
morning noticed the
temperature of Pile 2 rising
rapidly when the station
was moving into a cooling
period.
• With remote-detection
systems malfunctioning,
they moved on towards the
Pile to check on the
uranium-filled reactor, and
found it to be on fire.
© The Guardian – Corbis.

5. KNOWLEDGE OF THE WORKERS
• Deputy Manager Tom Tuohy climbed to the top of the
reactor building and took a complete blast of radiation in
order to pour water into the reactor. That had never been
tried before, and if it had failed, Cumberland would have
been destroyed. “Contamination was everytwhere, on the
golf course, in the milk, in chickens… but it was quickly
forgotten about,”.

6. THE ACCIDENT
• 11 tons of uranium sat on
fire for three days.
• Radioactive materials
spread across the Lake
District for weeks.
• Workers told to continue
make plutonium for the
atomic bombs after the
collapse.
© The Guardian – Rex Features

7. ENVIRONMENTAL CONSEQUENCES
For years, Sellafield was a
dumping
ground
for
radioactive
waste.
The
Convention
for
the
protection of the Marine
Environment of the NorthEast Atlantic claimed that
Sellafield
had
dumped
approximately 200kg (441
lbs.) of plutonium into
marine sediment of the Irish
Sea.
© The Guardian – Rex Features

8. LOCAL HEALTH CONSEQUENCES
A 1997 Ministry of Health
report stated that instances
of leukemia of children
living on the English and
Irish coasts near Sellafield
exceeded the national
average by 10 times. One
child in sixty in Seascale,
the village nearest to the
plant, will die of leukemia.

9. CURRENTLY
• Sellafield Ltd. (a nuclear
reprocessing plant near the
site of the Windscale plant)
faces court after claims they
sent four bags of radioactive
waste to a landfill facility.
• This is after a 2 ½ year
investigation by the UK’s
Nuclear Decommissioning
Authority.
• The UK government also
decided to exclude the
Sellafield nuclear
reprocessing
plant from EU ordered
stress tests.
• These voluntary tests after
the effects of Fukushima
are to answer health and
safety questions raised
over the EU’s numerous
nuclear facilities.
• The tests would examine
the plants resilience to
natural disasters and
human error.

10. Bibliography
• Matlack, Gerry. “The Windscale Disaster.” Damn
Interesting. Steven Shirt, 7 May 2007. Web. 21 Oct. 2013
• Ainslie, John. “Windscale Accident 1957.” Ban The Bomb.
Ban The Bomb, n.d. Web. 21 Oct. 2013
• Dwyer, Paul. “Windscale: A Nuclear Disaster.” BBC News.
BBC, 10 May 2007. Web. 22 Oct. 2013.
• “The Story of Sellafield Nuclear Power Station : In
Pictures.” The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 12
Mar. 2012. Web. 22. Oct. 2013.