In the early 1950's when attention was turned to trying to harness the power of the atom, they had to devote extraordinary effort to the safety features of the nuclear technology. Their main focus was to make sure that the reactor core would not meltdown. They tried this hard because they assumed that if a meltdown occurred that it could create a major public hazard and if it wasn't contained it could cause a tragic accident with possible fatalities. In all the years and in the 32 countries that have been using nuclear power there have only been two major accidents. Those accidents are the one on Three Mile Island and the one in Chernobyl. The Three Mile Island accident was contained and there was no harm done to anyone. The second one in Chernobyl involved an intense fire that ended up killing about 56 people and caused health and environmental issues. A prime concern of nuclear power plants is safety. They try to limit the radiation that their workers are exposed to by using physical shielding and also limiting the time that their workers spend in areas that have high levels of radiation. Now nuclear power plants take 5 main steps to keep everyone safe.
1. High quality design and construction. 2. Equipment that prevents operational failures. 3. Intense monitoring and regular testing to detect equipment or operational failures. 4. Diverse systems to control damage to the fuel and prevent significant radiation. 5. Provision to contain.
