Three+Mile+Island+Meltdown+What+Happened?

//** Three Mile Island Meltdown: What Happened? **// On March 20, 1979 the nuclear power plant of Pennsylvania came within thirty seconds of a national disaster. The power plant, Three Mile Island, started to melt down because of mechanical and human errors. Due to poorly trained staff and personnel this event, which could have been easily stopped from progressing as far as it did. The entire melt down started with a single leak. This leak set off security features which led to more problems and more security features being set off. Because of this chain reaction the steam was unable to get back to the cooling tower. This caused the temperature in the reactor core to rise uncontrollably. The temperature got to be over 2, 000 degrees Fahrenheit. The procedures that were to be taken if anything like this occurred were extremely confusing and led to the wrong steps being taken. Because of all the confusion and mistakes Three Mile Island came within thirty seconds of a total nuclear meltdown. After taking ten years and billions of dollars to complete Three Mile Island it would now cost another billion dollars to fix all of the damages. That is what happened during the Three Mile Island Meltdown.


 * [[image:031711_threemile18.sJPG_900_540_0_95_1_50_50.jpg width="603" height="466" caption="All roads to Three Mile Island were closed off"]] ||  || [[image:031711_threemile13.sJPG_900_540_0_95_1_50_50.jpg width="422" height="591" caption="People fled their homes only taking necessities and pets"]] ||

**Human and Machine Mistakes** *Control room instruments were inadequate *Operaters were confused about procedures *Communication links were not functioning

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