Nuclear labor issues the most dangerous tasks within the industry is intensified by nuclear secrecy. On May 22, 1986, a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant at La Hague in Normandy, sustained a mechanical malfunction. Five workers were exposed to unsafe levels of radiation and hospitalized. On April 12, 1987, the Tricastin Nuclear Power Plant fast breeder reactor coolant leaked contaminating seven workers. In July 2008, approximately 100 workers were exposed to a radiation leak. The Chernobyl nuclear reactor meltdown occurred on April 26, 1986, in the Ukraine, during a test of the Unit 4 reactor systems. The explosion and fire caused by human error
Steam explosion Steam explosion A steam explosion is an explosion caused by violent boiling or flashing of water into steam, occurring when water is either superheated, rapidly heated by fine hot debris produced within it, or heated by the interaction of molten metals (as in a fuel–coolant interaction, or FCI, of molten nuclear-reactor fuel rods with water in a nuclear reactor core following a core-meltdown). Pressure vessels, such as pressurized water (nuclear) reactors, that operate above atmospheric pressure can also provide the conditions for a steam explosion. The water changes from a liquid to a gas with extreme speed, increasing dramatically in