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The list of the worst disasters at nuclear power plants and other facilities all over the world is presented below:
During the 2011 Fukushima nuclear emergency in Japan, three nuclear reactors were damaged by explosions.
Following an earthquake, tsunami, and failure of cooling systems at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Japan on March 11, 2011, a nuclear emergency was declared. This was the first time a nuclear emergency had been declared in Japan, and 140,000 residents within 20 km of the plant were moved out.[1] Explosions and a fire resulted in dangerous levels of radiation, resulting in a stock market collapse and panic-buying in supermarkets.[2] As of April 2011, water is still being poured into the damaged reactors to cool melting fuel rods. John Price, a former member of the Safety Policy Unit at the UK's National Nuclear Corporation, has said that it "might be 100 years before melting fuel rods can be safely removed from Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant".[3] Following the Fukushima nuclear disaster, the International Energy Agency halved its estimate of additional nuclear generating capacity to be built by 2035.[4]
Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant, the largest nuclear generating station in the world by net electric power rating, happened to be near the epicenter of the strongest Mw 6.6 July 2007 Chūetsu offshore earthquake [5]. This initiated an extended shutdown for structural inspection which indicated that a greater earthquake-proofing was needed before operation could be resumed [6]. On May 9, 2009, one unit (Unit 7) was restarted, after the seismic upgrades. The test run had to continue for 50 days. The plant had been completely shut down for almost 22 months following the earthquake.
Tokaimura nuclear accident, September 30, 1999: Accident at a uranium reprocessing facility in Tokaimura, northeast of Tokyo. The incident took place while workers were mixing liquid