John Cockcroft, the man who insisted that the windscale nuclear power plant chimney stacks be fitted with high performance filters that saved much of norther England from becoming a nuclear wasteland after the reactor caught fire was mocked for his caution before the accident.

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 took place in Unit 1 of the two-pile Windscale facility on the northwest coast of England in Cumberland (now Sellafield, Cumbria). The two graphite-moderated reactors, referred to at the time as “piles”, had been built as part of the British post-war atomic bomb project. Windscale Pile No. 1 was operational in October 1950 followed by Pile No. 2 in June 1951.

The fire burned for three days and released radioactive fallout which spread across the UK and the rest of Europe. The radioactive isotope iodine-… Continue Reading (24 minute read)