At 4am on March 28, 1979 a partial meltdown of a nuclear reactor on Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania began. It occurred in Reactor-2 at the facility, which had only been operational for just over a year, and was caused by a combination of mechanical and human errors.
The partial meltdown resulted in the release of radioactive gases and radioactive iodine into the environment. Within days 140,000 people had evacuated the area. Nearly all had returned within 3 weeks.
12 days prior to the incident, the movie The China Syndrome premiered, uncannily predicting such an incident.
Cleanup started in August 1979, and officially ended in December 1993, with a total cleanup cost of about $1 billion.
Reactor-2 was immediately decommissioned after the incident, with Reactor-1 continuing operation until September 2019
