Nuclear leak frightens residents around Three Mile Island

North America News.Net
Monday 23rd November, 2009

A leak of radioactivity from Three Mile Island on the weekend has put the facility back in the news.

While nuclear officials have tried to reassure residents near the Pennsylvania plant, many remember when the facility went to the brink of meltdown in 1979.

At the time, officials referred to the leak as an "unplanned exposure."

The incident happened on Saturday when a leak within the reactor building created what was described as "minor contamination well below regulatory limits."

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has said that federal experts were sent to the plant and found nothing to show that anyone's safety was ever in jeopardy.

The leak was discovered after containment radiation alarms sounded.

The country’s worst civilian nuclear accident to date occurred at Three Mile Island on March 28th, 1979, when the cooling system malfunctioned in one of the towers, causing a partial meltdown of Unit Two.

The central Pennsylvania region around Harrisburg was evacuated.

The accident released radiation and krypton gas and ensured fear in many countries over building new nuclear plants.

Unit Two has been out of action ever since.

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