Civilian nuclear and radiological accidents primarily involve nuclear power plants . Most common are nuclear leaks that expose workers to hazardous material . A nuclear meltdown refers to the more serious hazard of releasing nuclear material into the surrounding environment . The most significant meltdowns occurred at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania and Chernobyl in the Soviet Ukraine . The earthquake and tsunami on March 11 , 2011 caused serious damage to three nuclear reactors and a spent fuel storage pond at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan . Military reactors that experienced similar accidents were Windscale in the United Kingdom and SL-1 in the United States
Three Mile Island
Three Mile Island accident
Nuclear technology