Tragedy strikes at a nuclear 'playground'

The most famous nuclear event in American history happened on the East Coast in March 1979, when a reactor at Three Mile Island in central Pennsylvania partially melted down and forced the evacuation of 140,000 people. The disaster so rattled America that no nuclear plants were commissioned for decades afterward.

But the worst meltdown by far took place 18 years earlier, outside Idaho Falls, Idaho. In comparison to the gush of radiation from Idaho Falls, Three Mile Island’s radiation was a mere spritz.

Idaho Falls is the only place where anyone has died in a nuclear-reactor incident in the United States.