A fire ripped through the radioactive materials in the core of Windscale… Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. Use the HTML below. A nuclear reactor in the north of England caught fire 60 years ago - in October 1957. The reactor involved in the fire had to be shut down and sealed, but Windscale continued to generate power using its other Magnox reactors and a … Designed to produce materials first for Britain's A-bomb, and then for the H-bomb, it was a triumphant statement of British scientific and technological prowess. Over 60 years ago, Britain flirted with a nuclear catastrophe that could have resulted in a tragedy worse than Chernobyl.. Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? I have just … THE 1957 WINDSCALE FIRE *News media - Feel free to reproduce this content but please credit www.Lakestay.co.uk. Windscale Fire documentary > Help playing audio/video. Check out what we'll be watching in 2021. On 10th October 1957, Pile 1 at Windscale in West Cumbria was on fire. Posted by Unknown at 2:35 PM . Windscale Pile No. Documentary detailing the events leading up to the fire at Windscale nuclear processing facility on 10 October 1957 All the sessions took place in … This was done by extracting the plutonium from uranium fuel rods within the pile reactors. This is a fascinating documentary on many levels: during the Manhattan Project American and British scientists worked together on the atom bomb that was eventually dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but after the war America stopped sharing information with Britain on its nuclear programme. Windscale fire, accident in 1957 at the Windscale nuclear reactor facility and plutonium-production plant in the county of Cumberland (now part of Cumbria), in northwestern England, that was the United Kingdom’s most serious nuclear power accident. Some of the most dangerous contamination was kept secret, and its effects only came to light years later. The Windscale plant consisted of two gas-cooled nuclear reactors. In 1957, Windscale Works was operated by the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA), and on 15th October it was announced by the Chairman … Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube. 1 (disputed) Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster: 2011 March Entitled Our Reactor is on Fire, the documentary featured interviews with key plant workers, including Tom Tuohy, who was the deputy general manager of Windscale at the time of the incident. When World War I… Victor Goodwin says the fire should never have happened. The accident occurred on October 8, 1957, when a routine heating of the No. Lakestay-sellafield Windscale 1957. [67] It alleged that the clusters of leukaemia in children around Windscale were attributable to the radioactive fallout from the fire. The IMDb editors are anxiously awaiting these delayed 2020 movies. The Windscale fire and the ensuing fallout, are estimated to have caused at least 190 cases of cancer, more than half of which were fatal. This decision was to prove crucial. The Windscale Fire of 1957 marked Great Britain's largest nuclear reactor disaster, ranking level 5 classification on the International Nuclear Event Scale. During World War II, the Manhattan Project as a defense against Germany ignited the United Kingdom's involvement in nuclear fission as a military weapon. The Windscale fire of 10 October 1957 was the worst nuclear accident in Great Britain's history, and one of the worst in the world, ranked in severity at level 5 out of a possible 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale. But, beneath its image, Windscale had been built in a hurry - with dire consequences. In 1971 Windscale management was transferred from the UKAEA to British Nuclear Fuels and renamed Sellafield. Tweet. Nuclear decommissioning operations commenced in the 1980s and are estimated to … The fire spread radioactive fallout over hundreds of miles. The other two are Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. During World War II, the Manhattan Project as a defense against Germany ignited the United Kingdom's involvement in nuclear fission as a military weapon. View production, box office, & company info. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. The combination of a lack of oxygen and gallons of water did the trick and the fire was eventually put out. The two reactors, referred to at the time as "piles", were built as part of the British post-war atomic bomb project. The UK was in a race to produce Pu for its weapons program in the nuclear arms race during the Cold War. The sale of milk was banned days after the fire at Windscale. There are quite a few available. 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