On 28 March 1979, Unit 2 of the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, near Harrisburg, experienced a core meltdown. Parts of Harrisburg had to be evacuated and the accident caused serious public health concerns. At the time, TMI was the worst accident in the history of commercial nuclear power. It remains the worst in the history of the United States. The accident received enormous media attention, not least because of the release of the fictional movie The China Syndrome just two weeks prior to the accident. In the movie, a core meltdown (dubbed “the China Syndrome”) occurs in a power plant in California. TMI confirmed the possibility of such a nuclear disaster in the United States and thus enhanced the credibility of anti-nuclear groups and triggered large-scale protests in the United States and around the world.
- Derkins, Susie.The Meltdown at Three Mile Island. New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, 2003.
- Hodgson, Peter E. Nuclear Power, Energy, and the Environment. London: Imperial College Press, 1999.
- Walker, J. Samuel. Three Mile Island: A Nuclear Crisis in Historical Perspective. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004.