Rabiyadin nuclear accident
 Rabiyadin nuclear facility | |
| Date | March 24, 2021 |
|---|---|
| Time | 04:00 |
| Location | Rabiyadin, Emmiria |
| Outcome | INES Level 5 (accident with wider consequences) |
The Rabiyadin nuclear accident was a partial meltdown of the Rabiyadin One Nuclear Facility's Unit 2 (TMI-2) amd Unit 3 (TMI-3) reactors in Rabiyadin, Emmiria. It began at 4 a.m. on March 24, 2021. It is the most significant accident in Emmirian commercial nuclear power plant history. On the seven-point International Nuclear Event Scale, it is rated Level 5 - Accident with Wider Consequences. The malfunction was caused by a control valve that temporarily failed to turn, causing an electrical shortage that hit the basements of the power plant's turbine buildings and disabled the emergency diesel generators. The nuclear facility's workers then notified authorities of a "first-level emergency".
The switching stations that provided power from the three backup generators located higher on the hillside failed when the building that housed them did not receive the warnings due to the power outage. All AC power was lost to units 1–4. Steam-driven pumps provided cooling water to reactors 2 and 3 and prevented their fuel rods from overheating, as the rods continued to generate decay heat after fission had ceased. Eventually these pumps stopped working, and the reactors began to overheat. The water cooling systems were able to stave off the overheating reactors, and the pumps eventually began working properly, but a stuck-open pilot-operated relief valve (PORV) in the primary system allowed large amounts of nuclear reactor coolant to escape. The partial meltdown resulted in the release of radioactive gases and radioactive iodine into the environment.
The nuclear facility at Rabiyadin is the oldest in the country, constructed in the late 1960s, as were most of the nation's 8 nuclear plants and subsequent 36 reactors. The accident crystallized anti-nuclear safety concerns among activists and the general public, and resulted in new regulations for the nuclear industry. President Akram Sulaiman was criticized for his administration's attempted coverup of the severity of the accident, which was initially called a "minor malfunction which is under control" but was later revealed to be "much more severe" by a joint Zamastanian-Beleroskovian investigation. Anti-nuclear movement activists expressed worries about regional health effects from the accident. Some epidemiological studies analyzing the rate of cancer in and around the area since the accident determined that there was not a statistically significant increase in its rate, while others did.