This is a List of nuclear and radiation fatalities by country. This list only reports the proximate confirmed human deaths and does not go into detail about ecological, environmental or long-term effects such as birth defects or permanent loss of habitable land.

Brazil

*September 13, 1987 – Goiania accident. Four fatalities and 320 other people received serious radiation contamination.

Costa Rica

*1996 –

Radiotherapy accident in Costa Rica The radiotherapy accident in Costa Rica occurred with the Alcyon II radiotherapy unit at San Juan de Dios Hospital in San José, Costa Rica. It was related to a cobalt-60 source that was being used for radiotherapy in 1996. An accidental overexpo ...

. Thirteen fatalities and 114 other patients received an overdose of radiation.

Greenland

*January 21, 1968 – Thule accident.

India

*April 2010 –

Mayapuri radiological accident Mayapuri is an industrial locality in West Delhi. It used to be a major hub of heavy metal and small scale industries, but following recent government sanctions, most of the heavy metal industries moved out. The place is now a combination of r ...

. One fatality.

Japan

*March 1, 1954 –

Daigo Fukuryū Maru was a Japanese tuna fishing boat with a crew of 23 men which was contaminated by nuclear fallout from the United States Castle Bravo thermonuclear weapon test at Bikini Atoll on March 1, 1954. The crew suffered acute radiation syndrome (ARS ...

, one fatality. A Japanese

tuna A tuna is a saltwater fish that belongs to the tribe Thunnini, a subgrouping of the Scombridae ( mackerel) family. The Thunnini comprise 15 species across five genera, the sizes of which vary greatly, ranging from the bullet tuna (max len ...

fishing boat A fishing vessel is a boat or ship used to catch fish in the sea, or on a lake or river. Many different kinds of vessels are used in commercial, artisanal and recreational fishing. The total number of fishing vessels in the world in 2016 was ...

with a crew of 23 men which was contaminated by

nuclear fallout Nuclear fallout is the residual radioactive material propelled into the upper atmosphere following a nuclear blast, so called because it "falls out" of the sky after the explosion and the shock wave has passed. It commonly refers to the radioac ...

from the United States

Castle Bravo Castle Bravo was the first in a series of high-yield thermonuclear weapon design tests conducted by the United States at Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands, as part of '' Operation Castle''. Detonated on March 1, 1954, the device was the most powerful ...

thermonuclear weapon A thermonuclear weapon, fusion weapon or hydrogen bomb (H bomb) is a second-generation nuclear weapon design. Its greater sophistication affords it vastly greater destructive power than first-generation nuclear bombs, a more compact size, a low ...

test at

Bikini Atoll Bikini Atoll ( or ; Marshallese: , , meaning "coconut place"), sometimes known as Eschscholtz Atoll between the 1800s and 1946 is a coral reef in the Marshall Islands consisting of 23 islands surrounding a central lagoon. After the Seco ...

on March 1, 1954, due to miscalculation of the bomb's explosive yield. * 1965 Philippine Sea A-4 crash – where a Skyhawk attack aircraft with a nuclear weapon in US-occupied Okinawa fell into the sea. The pilot, the aircraft, and the

B43 nuclear bomb The B43 was a United States air-dropped variable yield thermonuclear weapon used by a wide variety of fighter bomber and bomber aircraft. The B43 was developed from 1956 by Los Alamos National Laboratory, entering production in 1959. It entered ...

were never recovered. It was not until the 1980s that

the Pentagon The Pentagon is the headquarters building of the United States Department of Defense. It was constructed on an accelerated schedule during World War II. As a symbol of the U.S. military, the phrase ''The Pentagon'' is often used as a meton ...

revealed the loss of the one-megaton bomb. *September 30, 1999 – Tokaimura nuclear accident, nuclear fuel reprocessing plant, two fatalities.Benjamin K. Sovacool. A Critical Evaluation of Nuclear Power and Renewable Electricity in Asia, ''Journal of Contemporary Asia'', Vol. 40, No. 3, August 2010, p. 399. *August 9, 2004 – Mihama Nuclear Power Plant accident. Hot water and steam leaked from a broken pipe. The accident was the worst nuclear disaster of Japan up until that time, excluding Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Five fatalities. *March 12, 2011 –

Fukushima may refer to: Japan * Fukushima Prefecture, Japanese prefecture ** Fukushima, Fukushima, capital city of Fukushima Prefecture, Japan ***Fukushima University, national university in Japan *** Fukushima Station (Fukushima) in Fukushima, Fukushim ...

. Level 7 nuclear accident on the

INES Ines or INES may refer to: People * Ines (name), a feminine given name, also written as Inés or Inês * Saint Ines or Agnes (), Roman virgin–martyr * Eda-Ines Etti (stage name: ''Ines''; born 1981), Estonian singer Places * Doña Ines, a vo ...

. Three of the reactors at Fukushima I overheated, causing meltdowns that eventually led to explosions, which released large amounts of

radioactive Radioactive decay (also known as nuclear decay, radioactivity, radioactive disintegration, or nuclear disintegration) is the process by which an unstable atomic nucleus loses energy by radiation. A material containing unstable nuclei is consi ...

material into the environment.

Mexico

*1962 –

Radiation accident in Mexico City In March–August 1962, a radiation incident in Mexico City occurred when a ten-year-old boy took home an unprotected industrial radiography source. Four people died from overexposure to radiation from a 5- Ci cobalt-60 capsule, an industrial ra ...

, four fatalities.

Morocco

*March 1984 –

Radiation accident in Morocco In March 1984, a serious radiation accident occurred in Morocco, at the Mohammedia nuclear power plant, where eight people died from pulmonary hemorrhaging caused by overexposure to radiation from a lost iridium-192 source. Other individuals als ...

, eight fatalities. 　

Panama

*August 2000 to March 2001 – Instituto Oncologico Nacional of

Panama Panama ( , ; es, link=no, Panamá ), officially the Republic of Panama ( es, República de Panamá), is a transcontinental country spanning the southern part of North America and the northern part of South America. It is bordered by Co ...

; 17 patients receiving treatment for prostate cancer and cancer of the cervix received lethal doses of radiation.

Soviet Union/Russia

*September 29, 1957 –

Kyshtym disaster The Kyshtym disaster, sometimes referred to as the Mayak disaster or Ozyorsk disaster in newer sources, was a radioactive contamination accident that occurred on 29 September 1957 at Mayak, a plutonium production site for nuclear weapons and nu ...

, Mayak nuclear waste storage tank explosion at

Chelyabinsk Chelyabinsk ( rus, Челя́бинск, p=tɕɪˈlʲæbʲɪnsk, a=Ru-Chelyabinsk.ogg; ba, Силәбе, ''Siläbe'') is the administrative center and largest city of Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia. It is the seventh-largest city in Russia, with a ...

. Two hundred plus fatalities and this figure is a conservative estimate; 270,000 people were exposed to dangerous radiation levels. Over thirty small communities had been removed from Soviet maps between 1958 and 1991. (INES level 6). *July 4, 1961 –

Soviet submarine K-19 ''K-19'' (Russian: К-19) was the first submarine of the Project 658 (Russian: проект-658, lit: ''Projekt-658'') class ( NATO reporting name ), the first generation of Soviet nuclear submarines equipped with nuclear ballistic missiles, ...

accident. Eight fatalities and more than 30 people were over-exposed to radiation.Strengthening the Safety of Radiation Sources
p. 14. * May 24, 1968 –

Soviet submarine K-27 ''K-27'' was the only nuclear submarine of the Soviet Navy's Project 645. It was constructed by placing a pair of experimental VT-1 nuclear reactors that used a liquid-metal coolant (lead-bismuth eutectic) into the modified hull of a Project 62 ...

accident. Nine fatalities and 83 people were injured. *5 October 1982 – Lost radiation source, Baku, Azerbaijan, USSR. Five fatalities and 13 injuries. *August 10, 1985 –

Soviet submarine K-431 ''K-431'' (originally the ''K-31'') was a Soviet nuclear-powered submarine that had a reactor accident on 10 August 1985. It was commissioned on 30 September 1965. An explosion occurred during refueling of the submarine at Chazhma Bay, Vladivos ...

accident. Ten fatalities and 49 other people suffered radiation injuries. *April 26, 1986 – Chernobyl disaster. ''See below'' in the section on Ukraine. In 1986, the

Ukrainian SSR The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic ( uk, Украї́нська Радя́нська Соціалісти́чна Респу́бліка, ; russian: Украи́нская Сове́тская Социалисти́ческая Респ ...

was part of the Soviet Union. *April 6, 1993 – accident at the Tomsk-7 Reprocessing Complex, when a tank exploded while being cleaned with nitric acid. The explosion released a cloud of radioactive gas (INES level 4).Timeline: Nuclear plant accidents
''BBC News'', 11 July 2006.

Spain

*January 17, 1966 –

1966 Palomares B-52 crash The 1966 Palomares B-52 crash, also called the Palomares incident, occurred on 17 January 1966, when a B-52G bomber of the United States Air Force's Strategic Air Command collided with a KC-135 tanker during mid-air refueling at over the Med ...

. *December 1990 –

Radiotherapy accident in Zaragoza The 1990 Clinic of Zaragoza radiotherapy accident was a radiological accident that occurred from 10 to 20 December 1990, at the Clinic of Zaragoza, in Aragon, Spain. In the accident, at least 27 patients were injured, and 11 of them died due to ...

. Eleven fatalities and 27 other patients were injured.Strengthening the Safety of Radiation Sources
p. 15. *April 4, 2007 – Radioactive leakage in C.N. Ascó I (Ascó - Tarragona).

Thailand

* February 2000 – Three deaths and ten injuries resulted in Samut Prakarn when a radiation-therapy unit was dismantled.Pallava Bagla. "Radiation Accident a 'Wake-Up Call' For India's Scientific Community" ''Science'', Vol. 328, 7 May 2010, p. 679.

Ukraine

*April 26, 1986 – Chernobyl disaster. There is rough agreement that a total of either 31 or 54 people died from blast trauma or acute radiation syndrome (ARS) as a direct result of the disaster.

United Kingdom

*October 8, 1957 –

Windscale fire The Windscale fire of 10 October 1957 was the worst nuclear accident in the United Kingdom's history, and one of the worst in the world, ranked in severity at level 5 out of a possible 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale. The fire was in ...

ignites plutonium piles and contaminates surrounding dairy farms, 100 to 240 cancer deaths.

United States

*August 21, 1945 –

Harry Daghlian Haroutune Krikor Daghlian Jr. (May 4, 1921 – September 15, 1945) was an American physicist with the Manhattan Project, which designed and produced the atomic bombs that were used in World War II. He accidentally irradiated himself on August ...

died at

Los Alamos National Laboratory Los Alamos National Laboratory (often shortened as Los Alamos and LANL) is one of the sixteen research and development laboratories of the United States Department of Energy (DOE), located a short distance northwest of Santa Fe, New Mexico, ...

in New Mexico. *May 21, 1946 –

Louis Slotin Louis Alexander Slotin (1 December 1910 – 30 May 1946) was a Canadian physicist and chemist who took part in the Manhattan Project. Born and raised in the North End of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Slotin earned both his Bachelor of Science and M ...

died. *December 30, 1958 –

Cecil Kelley criticality accident A criticality accident occurred on December 30, 1958, at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico, in the United States. It is one of 60 known criticality events that have occurred outside the controlled conditions of a nuclear ...

, at the

. *1961 – (

US Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...

)

SL-1 Stationary Low-Power Reactor Number One, also known as SL-1 or the Argonne Low Power Reactor (ALPR), was a United States Army experimental nuclear reactor in the western United States at the National Reactor Testing Station (NRTS), later the ...

accident resulted in three fatalities. * 1964- Wood River Jct. Rhode Island. Robert D. Peabody – according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Robert Peabody was the U.S. nuclear industry's first and last fatality due to acute radiation syndrome. *1974-1976 – Columbus radiotherapy accident, 10 deaths and 88 injuries. *1979 –

Three Mile Island Accident The Three Mile Island accident was a partial meltdown of the Three Mile Island, Unit 2 (TMI-2) reactor in Pennsylvania, United States. It began at 4 a.m. on March 28, 1979. It is the most significant accident in U.S. commercial nuclea ...

– resulted in the permanent shutdown and decommission of Reactor 2, no recorded radiation release; no (known) linked deaths. *1980 – Houston radiotherapy accident, 7 deaths. * 1981 – Douglas Crofut died.

References

External links

The Worst Nuclear Disasters
''TIME magazine''

''Compiled by allen lutins''

''World Nuclear'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Nuclear and radiation fatalities by country Lists of nuclear disasters, * Fatalities by country Fatalities by country *Fatalities by country

Nuclear and radiation accidents by country This is a List of nuclear and radiation fatalities by country. This list only reports the proximate confirmed human deaths and does not go into detail about ecological, environmental or long-term effects such as birth defects or permanent loss ...