Radioactive dust unexpectedly blew out of a pipe being cut by workers during weekend maintenance at the Three Mile Island nuclear ...
From: www.usatoday.com
The accident at the central Pennsylvania plant — the site of the nation's worst nuclear power plant disaster — exposed a dozen employees to radiation, but the public was in no danger, plant officials and government regulators said.
Plant officials likened workers' maximum exposure to the equivalent of two medical X-rays, while the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said the workers were exposed to a small fraction of the annual federal regulatory limit.
The accident happened at about 4:15 p.m. (0915 GMT) Saturday. A radiation monitor at an entrance to the reactor building "temporarily went up" slightly, but a later survey detected no contamination outside, DeSantis said.
About 150 workers in the reactor building were sent home, and plant officials contacted authorities a few hours later and decontaminated the building.
Any radiation on an external surface, such as safety suit, can be cleaned off, while it takes two to three days for radiation to naturally leave the body of anyone who breathed it in, DeSantis said.
