Thailand's Kamol Sukosol Electric Company dumps three large cylinders containing cobalt-60 sources at a vacant parking lot in Samut Prakarn province. Three scrap collectors take the cylinders to a scrap metal shop and cut them open with an oxyacetylene torch. Fourteen people are exposed to the sources. The incident comes to light about 18 days later when one or more of them is treated at a local hospital. Three people die in March, two lose some of their fingers, and 11 are in critical condition for some period.

Officials from the Office of Atomic Energy for Peace (OAEP) trace the source to the scrap shop 11 hours later. Lacking any protective clothing, the team deals with Thailand's first radiation emergency by working in short stints and collecting the 5-cm Co-60 pellets with long pliers. Once the shop is cleaned up, a dispute over compensation ensues. Kamol Sukosol pays minimal amounts to some victims. Neither it nor the OAEP accepts any responsibility for the accident.

The Oscar II-class submarine SSGN Kursk sinks during a traning exercise in the Barents Sea after a torpedo accident results in two explosions. Because Kursk was scheduled to fire a high speed "super-cavitating" torpedo (which vented high pressure gas into the torpedo room, causing great discomfort to the torpedo crews) it has become normal practice to leave the watertight doors in the submarine open, to allow the gas to expand into a larger volume, reducing overpressure.

The first explosion apparently results from a leak of hydrogen peroxide from a torpedo. This propellant reacts violently with most metals and any organic substance, generating extreme heat and oxygen gas. The heat and oxygen tend to make the fire impossible to quench. (A similar incident in 1955 sank the British submarine HMS Sidon at the dock, killing 13.)

The second explosion, about two minutes after the first, is equivalent to 5,000 Kg of TNT — approximately the size of the warhead on a conventionally armed Russian torpedo. Presumably the fire set off the warhead in the Kursk's torpedo.

The submarine quickly sinks in shallow water near shore. Some of the crew of 118 survive the initial explosion and flooding. However, logistical problems, compounded by Russia's delay in requesting help from other nations, doom them to suffocation. About a year later, the hulk is raised and scrapped.

While hosting a "Distinguished Visitor" cruise off Hawaii for the Chief of Staff, Submarine Forces Pacific and sixteen civilian guests, the Los Angeles class nuclear attack submarine USS Greeneville (SSN-772) demonstrates an Emergency Main Ballast Tank Blow — a way to get the submarine to the surface quickly. The Greeneville collides with the Japanese fishing boat Ehime Maru.

The submarine's vertical fin slices into the engine room of the Ehime Maru, which sinks in ten minutes. Nine of its 35 passengers and crew are killed. The survivors huddle on life rafts until help arrives. The Greeneville stands by, but is unable by configuration to assist with rescue.

The submarine's commander is relieved immediately after the accident. Two months of repair work in drydock are needed to put the Greeneville back in service. A later board of inquiry fines its commander and disciplines other senior officers. The routine practice of hosting civilian guests comes under review.

Eight days after the sinking, a Navy salvage team locates the Ehime Maru in 2,000 feet of water. She is later raised and placed in a shallow-water recovery site near Oahu. American and Japanese divers recover eight of the nine victims. On 25 November 2001 she is towed out to sea and ceremoniously laid to rest. The total cost of the accident, including repairs to the Greeneville, compensation to Japan and victims' families, and the $60 million salvage operation, comes to $100 million.

Twenty-eight patients at the Panama National Institute of Oncology undergoing radiation therapy for colon, prostate, and cervical cancer receive overexposures ranging from 20 to 100 percent over the prescribed dose. Nine of the patients have died, with five of the deaths attributed to radiation overexposure. Many of the remaining patients are expected to develop serious radiation related complications.

Equipment used at the Institute included a Theratron 780-C Cobalt 60 teletherapy system manufactured by Theratronics Incorporated of Ontario, Canada, and radiation treatment planning software manufactured by Multidata Systems International Corporation of St. Louis, MO. Indications are that the causes of the problem are the way beam block data must be entered into the Multidata software and the way that software interprets the beam block data entered. Nothing to date suggests that a failure or malfunction of the Theratronics teletherapy system caused or contributed to the reported events.

During an extended power uprate test of the Quad Cities nuclear power plant in Cordova, Illinois, Unit 2 begins to shake itself apart. On 29 March the vibrations cause leaks in the cooling system and the plant is manually shut down. Despite this, uprate tests continue through 11 July, with leaks continuing to develop and holes in pipes being found and patched.

The unit is restarted on 21 July and runs until 28 May 2003 when the steam dryer fails with a 3/4-inch by 9-foot crack. No further data are reported.

Workers at Davis-Besse nuclear power plant in Oak Harbor, Ohio are replacing a cracked CRDM (control rod drive mechanism) nozzle when they discover a "football-sized" hole eaten 6 inches into the steel outer shell of the reactor vessel head. Only a 3/16^th-inch shell of stainless steel is left to hold back 87,000 U.S. gallons of radioactive water at 2,000 psi. The cracked CRDM nozzle leaked borated water (weak acid) onto the reactor head over a period of nearly six years, gradually eroding the steel.

On 22 April 2005, the NRC proposes a $5 million fine against FirstEnergy, the operator of Davis-Besse, for failure to clean the reactor vessel in 2000. (This fine is levied in June 2005.) System engineer Andrew Siemaszko is banned from working in the industry for five years because of his falsification of reactor vessel cleaning logs in May 2000.

Military personnel from the Leningrad Naval Base discover a vandalized lighthouse near Kurgolovo on the Baltic Sea. The RTG was looted for scrap metal. The "hot" strontium-90 capsule, discarded on the ice, melted through to the sea floor. Even though the ice is one meter thick, the gamma radiation dose rate directly above the sunken capsule measures 0.3Sv/h.

A similar case happened in the Leningrad region in 1999. An identical lighthouse was found "completely destroyed". Its RTG's radioactive power element was discarded at a bus station in the city of Kingisepp, 50 km away. Three people whom the police established were the perpetrators of the 1999 episode died from radiation poisoning.

No. 361, a Chinese Ming-class diesel-electric attack submarine, is taking part in a training exercise east of the Neichangshan Islands, off the northeast coast of China, when it suffers an undescribed accident. Reportedly, the diesel engine failed to shut down, using up all the oxygen in the small submarine and suffocating the 70 people aboard. The loss is discovered 10 days later when No. 361 fails to report in as scheduled.

It is not known whether the vessel carried nuclear weapons. The crew of a Ming-class submarine is normally 55 (9 officers and 46 enlisted). Observers suggest that the fifteen additional casualties could be high-ranking observers, and suggest that the difficulty of hiding their disappearance might explain why the Chinese government made the accident known.

About 1.6 gallons of radioactive water leak from a funnel in the waste processing system of the No. 1 reactor at Chubu Electric Power's Hamaoka plant, The leak is discovered when warning alarms sound, alerting workers at the plant. The cause of the leak was still under investigation, according to company spokesman Toshiyuki Hayashi. He says the material is contained, and there is no danger to humans or the environment.

In November 2001, the same reactor, which has a generating capacity of 540,000 kilowatts, was shut down after two radioactive leaks occurred within three days. Although no radiation escaped outside the reactor in either of those cases, it has been undergoing rigorous inspections since April 2002, Hayashi said.

Japan relies on nuclear power for about 30 percent of its electricity. Chubu Electric is Japan's third-largest power company and serves the central Japan region, including the major city of Nagoya. Its Hamaoka plant is about 120 miles southwest of Tokyo.

An inspection team from the Hydrographic Service of the Russian Northern Fleet finds a Beta-M RTG from lighthouse 414.1 on the Bay of Oleniya at Kola Harbor vandalized on the shore. The unit has been disassembled and looted by scrap metal thieves. One strontium-90 source is found sunk near the shore in about three meters of water. The Beta-M carries multiple sources weighing about 5kg total and having an aggregate rated activity of 800 to 1,000 R/h at distances from 2 to 5 cm.

Nearly 1,000 RTGs are in use throughout Russia's Arctic region to power lighthouses and navigational aids. Of these, some 700 are of the Beta-M type. The Beta-M weighs 560 kg and has a power output of 230 Watts. Its case is not welded and can be taken apart with hand tools.

The same inspection team finds a completely dismantled Beta-M RTG, used to energize Navigational Mark #437, on the island of Yuzhny Goryachinsky in Kola Harbor, near Polyarny, Russia. The generator's radioactive source is found on the ground near the shoreline on the northern part of the island.

The perpetrators, thought to be the same ones who vandalized the beacon at lighthouse 414.1, are never caught. It is likely they received radiation injury, possibly even a fatal dose.

A corroded pipe at the #3 reactor of the Mihama plant in Fukui Prefecture suddenly bursts at 3:30 PM, inundating 11 or 12 nearby workers with superheated steam. Two of the workers die the same day; the rest are in critical to serious condition. The ultimate death toll is five, making this Japan's worst reactor accident.

There is no radiation release because the pipe is part of the secondary cooling loop. But the plant operator, Kansai Electric Power Company (KEPCO), has ignored warnings about the corroded condition of cooling-system pipes. The particular pipe that burst has not been inspected for 28 years, and has degraded to 1.4mm in thickness — roughly one-tenth of its original dimension. Also, a similar incident on the #2 reactor in 1991 allowed the primary and secondary loops to exchange coolant.

These poor safety management practices impel Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency to raise the incident rating on 3 June 2005. The agency also orders KEPCO to shut down the reactor until it can document that all plumbing systems are in satisfactory condition.

The reactor is restarted on 10 January 2007.

A patient in Lyon, France receiving treatment by radiotherapy is overexposed due to confusion over units used in defining the body surface to be irradiated. The patient develops symptoms in May 2005 which at that time are attributed to over-sensitivity to radiation. These conditions lead to the patient's death in March 2006.

At a construction site in Ranquil, Chile, a 90-Curie Ir-192 source is being used for radiography of welds on an evaporation tower. Unnoticed by the operator, working just before midnight, the source falls from the machine onto a 22-m high work platform. About 11 AM on 15 December, a worker finds the source and carries it in his hand to the site's office. Two other workers are also in contact with it for several minutes. Shortly thereafter, the loss is discovered when a Finnish worker approaches the office and the dosimeter he carries sounds an alarm.

On 16 December, the three workers most exposed are hospitalized in Santiago. On 19 December, an IAEA team visits the site and recommends the worker who carried the source be transferred to France for treatment; he is admitted to a hospital in France on 29 December. As of March 2006 he remains hospitalized in France. His injuries include radiation burns on the hands and legs.

Subsequent investigation identifies a fourth worker with symptoms of radiation injury.

Beginning on 5 January 2006, a fifteen-year-old female patient with a tumor is given radiotherapy treatments at Beatson Oncology Centre in Glasgow, Scotland. The final treatment is given on 1 February. Then it is discovered that, due to human error, her entire course of 17 treatments has been given with excessive doses. (One report states the doses were 65% too high.)

Symptoms appear promptly. As of early February 2006, they include large sores on the scalp and ears and permanently higher than normal body temperature. The total dose is reported as potentially fatal; the localized dose to the brain and neck poses a risk of brain damage, paralysis, or death through damage to blood vessels in nerve tissue. The patient's condition, including damage to the eyes, improves by late February in response to hyperbaric treatment. On 19 October the patient, then aged 16, dies; she had been recovering from surgery in September to remove fluid from her brain.

An investigation into the cause of the accident is reportedly in its final stages as of October. The patient's death is ultimately attributed by health officials to her cancer. Reports indicate that 39 other patients at Beatson had received overdoses during radiotherapy between 1985 and 2006; most suffered no ill effects.

A worker is accidentally exposed to a Co-60 source at a facility that sterilizes medical devices by irradiation. The facility, in Fleurus, Belgium, places the devices in an exposure cell whose source is normally stowed in a pool when personnel are present. A safety interlock system is supposed to assure the stowage.

Finding the door to the exposure cell open and a radiation monitor sounding an alert, the worker resets the alarm and enters the cell for some 20 seconds to close the door. Soon afterward he becomes nauseous but does not suspect radiation exposure. Not until he suffers massive loss of hair several weeks later does he visit a doctor. Then it is discovered that his exposure was around 420 rem; this estimate is subsequently raised to 440-480 rem. He begins treatment for radiation sickness on 31 March at a French hospital.

Investigation suggests the primary cause of the accident to be a failure of the hydraulic control system that raises and lowers the source from safe storage in its pool.

Residents in Mill County, IL and areas near other Exelon Corp. nuclear power plants express concern about leaks of cooling water containing radiaoactive tritium that have been going on for years.

On 17 March, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan joins Will County district attorney James Glasgow in filing suit against Commonwealth Edison, the operator of the Braidwood plant, and its parent Exelon Corporation.

Since 2002, authorities have also been concerned about vibration problems at Excelon's Quad Cities plant and others it operates.

Workers at the Turkey Point nuclear power plant find a 1/8-inch hole drilled in a pipe connected to the reactor's cooling system pressurizer. The plant's Unit 3 was being tested after a scheduled refueling and maintenance period that began March 5th. FBI agents interview contractors and workers at the plant 30 miles south of Miami, Florida to determine whether the hole was deliberate sabotage or a simple error.

Note: This story is preserved at Liberty Post. It is gone from the Sun-Sentinel's archive, which is only maintained for the two previous weeks.

After a radiography machine is used in Dakar, Senegal, it is prepared for transport to a new location for another job. The workers who pack it up do not notice that its Ir-192 source fails to retract into a shielded compartment. The equipment is stored under a staircase for several weeks before being moved to its next use location.

Operators at the destination, in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, discover the mistake as they unpack the machine. Between the two locations, four individuals receive sufficient exposure to warrant transfer to Paris, France for medical treatment. One individual's condition is described as "particularly serious." Other employees at both sites are tested for exposure.

At Minot AFB, North Dakota, twelve AGM-129 cruise missiles are loaded aboard a B-52H bomber for transport to Barksdale AFB in Louisiana. Six of these missiles contain live W80-1 nuclear warheads, instead of the training warheads they are supposed to carry. The mistake is caused by confusion over which documentation to use. Complicating factors are the early removal of the missiles from their storage bunker by a transport crew, who did not inspect them, and the failure of the aircraft crew to properly inspect all the missiles.

The warheads are not missed for 36 hours, during which time the aircraft is not guarded as required by nuclear security protocols. When discovered, the lapse is treated as a Bent Spear. Most of the personnel involved suffer demotions or other administrative punishment. Ultimately, the incident contributes along with other problems to the resignations of General T. Michael Mosely, Air Force Chief of Staff, and Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne.

A reservoir overflowed at the Tricastin facility at Bollene, 40km (25 miles) from the popular tourist city of Avignon, allowing approximately 30 cubic meters of liquid containing unenriched uranium to leak into the ground and into the nearby Gaffiere and Lauzon rivers. The site houses a nuclear power plant as well as a materials processing facility.

The French Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) inspected the Tricastin plant on 10 Jul 2008 and found that existing prevention measures were deficient and that its operator, Societe Auxiliaire de Tricastin (Socatri), had been too slow to inform authorities about the leak. The plant was temporarily shut down until deficiencies could be corrected. Groundwater was contaminated by the leak, and the local population has been warned not to drink water from the rivers or eat fish caught in them. They were also cautioned not to swim in the rivers or use river water to irrigate crops. Legal action against Socastri, a subsidiary of giant Avera, is expected, because of plant deficiencies and because Socastri was late in notifying authorities of the problem.

Liquid containing uranium leaked from a broken underground pipe at a nuclear materials processing plant in Romans-sur-Isère in the Drôme region of southeastern France. It's thought that the pipe ruptured several years ago, and its construction apparently did not meet applicable regulations.

The French Nuclear Safety Authority said experts were trying to determine how much leaked uranium was present at the plant, which is owned by the electricity company Areva. An Areva spokesman, Charles Hufnagel, said the leak of lightly enriched uranium did not spread outside the site and had "absolutely no impact on the environment." He said the factory hoped the problem would be classified as INES Level 1, the lowest level possible.