PJ Vogt

There were no nukes concerts.

And then this movie comes out, a hit nuclear disaster film in 1979 called The China Syndrome.

But so they were saying that the radioactive material would burn through the earth?

Like when you're a kid and your parents say you can take a hold of China?

That seems wrong.

March 28, 1979 in Pennsylvania.

It's the middle of the night and something's gone wrong.

Backup systems come online to fix the problem, except now there's some valve that's supposed to close, and it doesn't.

Coolant is pouring out of the reactor.

The risk, obviously, is overheating, that the nuclear fuel rods could melt down.

The human operators are getting bad information from their gauges.

They mistakenly think the reactor is getting too much coolant water, so they cut the water back further.

The fuel rods do start to melt.

About half the reactor core will melt before anyone correctly diagnoses the problem.

When fuel rods melt, they release radioactive isotopes you would not want to ingest.

And the molten fuel itself turns into a dangerous sludge called corium, nuclear lava.

You would not want to be anywhere near it.

This is the point where everyone's in danger.

This is the nightmare scenario.

Except at Three Mile Island, the corium was successfully contained.