(WTAP) – On Mar. 28, 1979, one of the worst accidents in the history of the U.S. nuclear power industry begins when a pressure valve in the Unit-2 reactor at the Three Mile Island fails to close.
According to History.com, cooling water, contaminated with radiation, drained from the open valve into adjoining buildings, and the core began to dangerously overheat.
The Three Mile Island nuclear power plant was built in 1974 on a sandbar on Pennsylvania’s Susquehanna River, just 10 miles downstream from Harrisburg. In 1978, a second state-of-the-art reactor began operating on Three Mile Island, which was praised for generating affordable and reliable energy in a time of energy crises…