Nuclear accident Har­ris­burg 1979

On March 28, 1979, the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant near Harrisburg (Pennsylvania) suffered the most serious nuclear accident in the USA to date. After the failure of a pump in the cooling water system, the power plant shut down automatically, but radioactive steam escaped due to the failure of a valve. Almost all the fuel rods in the core of the pressurized water reactor were destroyed. A radioactive cloud could still be measured several hundred kilometers from the accident site. More than 200,000 people had to leave their homes.