On the occurrence of radioactive fallout over Norway as a result of the Windscale accident, October 1957

Health effects of the Windscale Pile fire

“…The accident has subsequently been the subject of many scientific studies, the majority of which have concerned the subsequent distribution of radioactivity in the environment, estimates of the release inventory, and modelling of the plume dispersion [1,[5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14].…”

Windscale and Kyshtym: a double anniversary

“…The ratio of 137 Cs to 131 I in deposits differed according to the period of release from which they originated; however, a ratio of 0.02 applied to the isopleths of 131 I deposition accounted for the majority of the (more sparse) determinations of 137 Cs in soil cores (Booker, 1962;Chamberlain, 1996). The south-easterly direction of travel for the plume from Windscale, and the reporting of the accident in the media, resulted in the detection of the plume at many sites in mainland Europe and Scandinavia (Blok et al, 1958;Stewart and Crooks, 1958;Bergan et al, 2008). Despite the substantially larger release of readily detectable fission products from Kyshtym, both the initial direction of travel of the plume, and the lack of any public announcement of the accident, made it unlikely that the accident would have been detected by monitoring in Europe.…”