Los Angeles - A chemical explosion at Hanford Nuclear Reservation released plutonium and other toxics while emergency responses descended into chaos, a US government report has disclosed. The explosion took place on May 14th in a 400-gallon storage tank at the plutonium processing facility where chemicals had been improperly placed. The explosion blasted open the roof, releasing a toxic plume through the chimney that spilled plutonium-contaminated water outside the plant.
As emergency services broke down, a group of workers was twice forced to walk through the toxic cloud, and was later denied proper hospital treatment. Confused plant managers did not declare an alert for two hours, the plume was not tracked, and some emergency services outside the plant were never notified at all. Hanford, by the Columbia River in the Pacific north-west, produced the plutonium for the bomb dropped on Nagasaki in the second World War. - (Guardian Service)