‘Britain’s Fukushima’: EDF shut nuclear reactor for five months over fears of similar crisis to meltdown at tsunami-hit plant via Daily Mail

• One of two reactors at Dungeness in Kent closed by company last year
• EDF was worried that its shingle bank flood defences could be breached
• Tsunami crashed over Fukushima nuclear plant sea wall in Japan in 2011

British nuclear power reactor was shut down for five months over fears of a Fukushima-style meltdown.One of two reactors at Dungeness power station on the Kent coast was closed by energy giant EDF last year after concerns that its shingle bank flood defences could be breached during a catastrophic weather event.The flood defences were reviewed in an official government report in response to the Fukushima disaster and they were found to ‘not be as robust as previously thought’.

IN PROFILE: PREVIOUS NUCLEAR DISASTERS IN BRITAIN AND BEYOND

Kyshtym (Soviet Union): September 1957

Thousands of people are exposed to radiation and thousands more evacuated from their houses after a chemical explosion near Chelyabinsk sees up to 80 tonnes of radioactive materials released into the air.

Windscale (Cumbria): October 1957

A limited release of radioactivity caused by a fire in the graphite-core reactor sees the sale of milk from local farms banned for a month. The reactor at Windscale (right) is buried in concrete after it cannot be salvaged.

Chernobyl (Soviet Union): April 1986

An experiment causes one of four reactors to explode, with the resulting fire burning for nine days. The explosion kills two people and 28 more die from acute radiation sickness directly after the blast. It is also thought that the disaster caused thousands of cancer deaths.