World Map of Nuclear Accidents & Incidents
Nuclear has had its ups and downs. Use our world map of nuclear accidents & Incidents to find out exactly what went wrong, where it happened, and at which point in history. The chart includes information about every nuclear accident and every nuclear incident in history, including the INES rating, the industry it happened in, the plant type it occurred on, and more…
Quick Guide to using the World Map of Nuclear Accidents & Incidents
CHART – The chart is split into two sections: The World Map of Nuclear Accidents & Incidents at the top and the Timeline at the bottom.
WORLD MAP – Click and drag to move the map around. Hold Ctrl and use the mouse wheel to zoom in or out. Alternatively use the zoom buttons in the top right corner.
POINTS – Points are coloured and sized based on the INES rating of the event. Only events with an INES rating of 1 or higher are included.
TIMELINE – The Timeline is playing by default. Use the pause button on the left to stop the animation. Clicking on specific dates along the timeline will move the animation to that point in time. To restart the animation after it finishes, click on the restart button on the left.
COUNTER – The counter in the top left displays the number of accidents & incidents at given point in time. Clicking on a specific INES rating lets you see only accidents or incidents that fall within that category.
POPUPS – Popups only appear when the animation is paused. Hovering over a specific point on the map will show you a popup containing additional information about the accident or incident.
Quick guide to the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES)
The INES scale was developed in 1990 by the International Atomic Energy Agency. It is a logarithmic scale indicating the severity of a nuclear event, whether that be a nuclear incident or a nuclear accident. Each level is approximately 10 times as severe as the preceding one. A Level 7 event is therefore one million times more severe than a Level 1 event. The scale primarily considers impact on people and the environment, but also on nuclear safety systems, barriers, and controls. It is primarily used to support effective global communication following nuclear events.
Notes on the data
This data is taken directly from the ‘ETH Zurich curated nuclear events database’. It is entirely unaltered, other than removing some events lacking INES data and those with a rating of 0. Coordinates for each site were obtained using Google Earth, and added into the database to be able to turn it into an interactive map.
Not all known events are given an official grading by the IAEA. The researchers who collated the data have applied the grading scale to estimate the INES rating of all events. These ratings are assumed to be accurate. The map presents both the official INES rating and the INES estimate.
While the database is well cited, and assumed to be mostly factually accurate, there are guaranteed to be gaps in the data. The IAEA encourages its member states to publicly share information about events occurring, but does not enforce this. Some countries tend to openly disclose any event, while others do not disclose any. Large numbers of events in one country does not necessarily imply poor nuclear safety, but might instead demonstrate an open and honest approach to making mistakes and sharing lessons learned. On the flip side, an absence of events might not necessarily imply impeccable nuclear safety, but simply that events were not publicly reported.
Very little is known about certain events due to the secretive nature of the facilities they took place in. The descriptions provided might therefore be incomplete or inaccurate in some instances.
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Ove Schoeppner
This data was taken directly from:
Nuclear Events Database – ETH Risk Center | ETH Zurich
Site coordinates were obtained using Google Earth.
