1945-1991: Cold War world Wiki
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The event[]

The event at the experimental prototype L-IV nuclear reactor led to an axident consisting of a steam explosion and reactor fire in Leipzig, Nazi Germany on June 23rd, 1942.

The L-IV test, indicated that the spherical geometry, with five metric tons of heavy water and 10 metric tons of metallic uranium, could sustain a fission reaction.

The fire and subsequent explosion was the world's first nuclear accident in history. 4 people died during it and it has a unofficial INES accident rating of 4.

Whilst the accident is not a Cold War era accident it was the first of them all!

Also see[]

Sources[]

  1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leipzig_L-IV_experiment_accident
  2. http://www.deutsches-museum.de/archiv/archiv-online/geheimdokumente/forschungszentren/leipzig/
  3. http://umweltfairaendern.de/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/ArnoldHeinrich-Zu-einem-autobiographischen-Brief-von-Robert-Doepel-an-Fritz-Stratmann-ilm1-2012200288.pdf.
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