"
THE
NIGHT THE ATOMS RAN WILD
THE CHINA MAIL,
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 1959.
GREAT EXPECTATIONS.
BY JAK
Now revealed in irresistible
detail-what really brought a péril to Britain that
man had never faced before
Urania 'fr' here:
Caden fas
· PERNICI
faclehters insecting
HOW THEY FOUGHT THE FIRE AT WINDSCALE
AT
T eight o'clock on the morning of Friday, October 11, 1957, ginger- haired Tom Tuohy, general manager of Windscnte atom works, and Kenneth Ross, his operation director, were faced with a fearful dilemma unique in history.
For 16 hours they had been trying to control a fire like a huge in- cendiary bomb raging in the heart of an atomic reactor the size of a super- einema. Behind the concrete wall tons of uranium and scores of tons of graphite were ablaze. The only time uranium had been on fire before was in atom bombs.
Fumes loaded with radio- active atoms were escaping from the reactor's 400 ft. high chimney,
WAS
by CHAPMAN PINCHER
Huge electric fans to blow air hous
"I have never seen men
I had no effect and by early morning was clear that water was the only hope.
Steam
M this stage Ross sent a mearage to Sir Leonard Owen. averall chief of the Windscale project. that they had been forced to squirt water into the burning fornare.
Owen f straight down, arriving at Windscale on Friday lunchtime. By this time Tuohy, nided by Donnid Ireland. The chief engineer, and the firemen had been pumping water into the renelor for several hours.
After the first dousing of the white-hut uranium had failed to produce i "bump" the hopes were turned on at high pressure. Huge quantifies ot steam
billowed up the chimney but hydrogen
there WOS explosion.
no
It works
Says Tuohy: "Not until we shut off the air, which we dare not do until we had the alter- nnive cooling effect of the water did the reactor begin to cool down rapidly."
The gamble had worked. When Tuohy went to bed he knew the Are was licked. 11 was dead out by 3 p.m. The following day.
At this point Ken Saddington turned to Ross and said: "Well. we are in a hell of mess
Ross replied: "It's nothing
with compared
The
inquiry coming afterwards,
ful for Sir Leonard Owen the worst news of all was tnore
immediate, this While
Ws going on
the Saturday By midday Tuchy and 11s helpers tried
routine sampling of local milk out the burningt
thut radio- pushing wentum rods with steel probes supplies showed
had escaped through holes in the live inserted
But the uranium through the filters and polluted Concrete face. was' fused solid and the ip the ground on which the cattle
were feeding. of the steel probes Buckled.
About 100
tid scientists
1 workers were involved
Unless the last resort ugh the reactor were twined works so hard," says Tuohy.
was on in the hope of kreping the there risked growing danger of so much training swaphite coal. radioactivity escaping that complete evacuation of the countryside might be neces-
Bary.
This last resort was the simple but highly hazardous move uf attempting to doune the incan- descent metal by squirting powerful jets of water.
There was a fair chance that instead of putting out the the wales would react with the first ranium setting hydrogen gas.
Decision
Vans monitoring the country
reports that ranteed ricevity was getting through the fitter.
Flames
in subduing the
jedine
Destruction
"Ang on, can't yer, dear old dad ain't even filled it in yet'
Landon Kaperać Servier
BRIGITTE
To Bardot and Dors: the same
questions on
POOLS WIN
FAMIL
DIAMA
going to be a mother
What do you misg these days, sitting at home until your baby is horn? BARDOT
TWO ACTRESSES internationally famous as symbols of womanhood are expecting babies in February. Our writers put identical questions to them on motherhood. (Mrs Dickie Peter Evans went to the Surrey home of 29-year-old Diana Dors At 4.30 p.. on the Thursday different ways Hughes and Gauden decided are but only eight could work The destruction of thousands Dawson) and the star with the famous pouting lower lip answered the questions the time had come
of gallons of milk at a time on the big holst se--
the with alacrity, enthusiasm, and a sincerity seldom associated with the brittle blonde front Jace of the inconvenience and vicing the
with the built-in wisecrack.
Hundreds In Paris Rosalie Macrae went to see Brigitte Bardotte bound ok Inside the furnice. tiously.
reactor.
The star with the famous pouting upper lip was less (Mme Jacques Charrier). nevitable.
enthusiastic, lying in bed disinterestedly flicking through the pages of a magazine. The atom-men who
She, like Miss Dors, gave frank replies.
اده
fire,
and Safety
to take a Can- in defiance ermal
they mma-ures. pened one of the 10in. hrles free through
which the uranium as loded, and peered in.
after Soen
WLS
midnight, when
it was clear the fire was out of
with
this scare cause tr
was
had
control, Ross phoned the chief moved into a peaceful part of to build their constable 1 Prarith. Hundreds Cumberland
To their horror they saw that of palcemen were ordered to factory expected the uranium was on fire.
Hel up, dress and be ready for resentment
evacuation of possible
the residents contryside.
The phone rang at 4.45 p.m.
miles Tuoly's hone 1WD
Ifaced to the factory.
away.
If this happened there would bea hemendous barkire in the de: chimney, almost certainly bit filter: The engh to damage which were holding back most of the lethal fumes.
If the uranium
was allowed fumes would eventually escape anyway.
141 burn
on
He hath more plugholes opened up to see the extent of the fire.
Fire-break
of and hundreds things but I will nwke up for
afterwards! DORS
Nething.
never wi
Believe it or not, I night-life girl. Never did sit around in night 1tbs with gin in one hand dramatic and a cigarette is another. That
if sure we shaft
That's a
+
Q
Do you want a boy or a
girl?
BARDOT
Q
DORS
Sacrinees!
What mental and physleal effect has pregnancy had
word. I'm
un
necessary. I
mean already I'm
you? BARDOT
try to
decide what I should
de after the baby is born. I've
it is all one to me really, but I think a boy.
anger and from the loca! following this first major accident
the But when Owen visited
The Sellapark for Meanwhile the 1.300 inhabi- legal pub
sieut a drink the residents could truds of nearby Seascale on not knowing of the danger hardly have been calmer.
Over the next months the en their door-steps.
scientists learned more from the DORS reactor's cold carcase than they
At the beginning I wanted could have learned from any dirt. Now I have got to the
costing experimen:
stage where I don't care. deliberate
£3,000,000.
The gaunt, useless blockhouse now serves B5 a memorial to man's ignorance of the atom's quirks of behaviour. 11 Is also manument to the handful of At 4 am. Tuoly tried forcing men whose resolute action and in carbon dioxide gas in the courage in the face of unprece-I never do anything by chance!
DORS hope that it might blanket the dented danger saved the nation. Hames which were now leaping from possible catastrophe.
London Express ServRCH). look up at the rear of the furnace.
repeatedly warned Ross was by physicists Ken Saddington and Jack Moore that if the higher About 150 channels of the temperature got much
suddenly with the graphite might 'The moment water was squirt- uranium were ablaze
lieking into the release stored up energy, result el into the reactor the whole £3,000,000 siructure built
explosive would tens of surrounding graphite ing in a rapid spread of the mid-twentieth-century
"What if it triggers off?" Juried form of charcoal which fire.
they said. was glowing like a brazier.
make atomic
be a write-off.
bluish mes
to
"I was never se frightened in
my life," recalls Ross.
The only thing to do was to unload the uranium rods not to make a dre- So the decision was made. yet affected The staff, who by this time were break round the burning zone.
time fare against streaming Into the huge Wind- This
ordered to rule works, were
hep under cover. The Chief and Constable of Cumberland
Westmorland had already been warned that 없 wide scale evacuation might be necessary,
Suspicion
Tushy and Hill Crone. the station fire-eblef, sweating and breathless In protective Guits and respirators. inched The an 30ft. heavy re huses up ladder on to a platform poked them through plug holes.
and
[American]
Moon rocket
Then after ordering everyone else out of the plant Tuohy tool cover behind an armour-
door. plated
"in case che bumped." At 8.55 am. the first jel was turned on.
About 16 hours earlier on the Thursday reactor operators had- nolleed a slight rise in tempera- ture. As it got worse they be- gan to suspect that one of the uranium fuel-rods had burst.
#tage the reactor At this
40 year old Hon mnnnager. Gausden, decided to report the trouble to Henry Davey, kis Immediate chief, Ross, whe hap- pened, ironically, to be visiting Windscale that day for a meti- ing of the safety commitee, joined in the inspection.
He also consulted works Hughes who monoger Tóm decided to bring into action the built-in scanning device which sniffs out the position of a burst fuel-TOU. He found that the scanrier was jammed by the heat,
Soon the chart linkext with the flier-trape on top of the
showed high chimney
that
reply "hot" radioactive" fumes were going up the fue,
fails
American Moon rocket
fails
I don't find it much of a joke, DORS
was Dars the myth--Myth Dors.
ordinary Prams
been offered ጊ Broadway
Do you envy which would
their moon mothers pushing musical being away from England for along a sireci, knowing you will six months. But, if I go, do I always be stared at? take the baby to suffer a New BARDOT
no! Or leave hims Pphatically
My profes- here? Already there's this con- sion has its compensations. Aljet, 1 don't know the answer pORS yot
31
Well, I have
easy
relaxed, very attitude towards fe, t feel fit and well and on top the world
of
York summer?
Had you planned to have A family now? BARDOT
Naturally.
What
sacrifices
changes will you make in life for the child?
BARDOT
The same
sacrifices
25
mother would make,
and
your
No. I shall baby out.
certainly take my
you
I
What's
What namra have
chosen?
any BARDOT
Are you frightened at the thought of childbirth?
Oh. dear, I really haven't BARDOT
thought about it yet.
DORS
Certainly am, but I'm afrald cannol find any way of avoiding ill DORS
Caroline Jaco or Mark
Net really frightened. Richard, Mark because it's a strong name. And it can't be the word? Curious.... shortened. Richard, well, ob prehensive. Slightly in awe viously because of Dickie.
No, op
Do you hope to have inore did you Why
have no children? chlidren in your first marriage? BARDOT
BARDOT
Because I dide't Irel like having any then.
DORS
Because we didn't, I suppose.
No, no, a thousand times not DORS
an
At least one more. I was only child. It isn't very pleasant, don't . But more than two, I
know, } haven't got the time zeally,
--(London Express Service).
TWO-CAR PLAN FOR EVERY]
RUSSIAN HOME
Q
Cummings
"... And when the Russians have softened themselves up, then, gentlemen, we attack!''
Luadan
Express Bervice,
Press
ald
Havo you any
cuttings about yourself before you started a family which you would prefer your child not to ECO?
BARDOT
By the time my child is enough to read there will be a inillion more stories about me ro what is the use of worrying? DORS
QUOTE
by Mr Clunelmas Humplutys, QC, at Canterbury Quarter 5cssions:-
THERE are
some people who I shall take great delight get quite excited and No. in showing them when the tirat pugnacious on une sherry; and comes. I hope he or she will others, I find it hard to beliève, have a sense of humour, It's all who can drink 12 pints of beer nonsense after all,
with no effect.
What did your
to become a father?
BARDOT
DORS
by Professor C. F. Carter, of husband Manchester
University, is
say when you told him he was payer read to the Royal Society
of Arta in London:im ARE we any happler or more secure for being richer? Our prisons' are full, violence and theft are common, signs of nervous strain are often to bo after all the excitement, seen. Are we really richer for suddenly realised what being able to, pack ourselvet terribly seriais bukiness having | like sardines into "s rush-hour a baby was.
He was
delighted. I can't re what he said exactly,
Quesal
member
But
We
a