The Windscale Meltdown

Although it might seem impossible to conceal a nuclear disaster, as we witnessed with Chernobyl, individuals do try. It was the same with the UK's Windscale catastrophe. In a reactor's core where plutonium was being produced, a fire started in 1957. Everything was guarded and secured.

The 16-hour fire produced poisonous smoke that was released into the environment. The government hid the true scope of what occurred, not even for the ostensible benefit of the populace, but rather out of concern for the impact it might have on relations with the United States.

They waited 40 years without mounting a cleaning since the technology to do so didn't exist. The plutonium was then retrieved and moved by robots that were sent beneath the floodwaters that had swamped the area.

• Year: 1957
• Damage: worst nuclear accident in the United Kingdom's history(ranked in severity at level 5 out of a possible 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale)