http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1990/12/rad-storm-rising/6380/<snip>
The Soviet Union has declassified information about ten accidents at nuclear power stations that occurred from 1964 to 1985. Several of the mishaps led to fatalities and to significant emissions of radioactivity.
• On February 6, 1974, a ruptured cooling loop in a Leningrad nuclear power station spilled "highly radioactive water" into the environment. Three people were killed.
• In October of 1975 one and a half million curies of "highly radioactive radionuclides" were emitted into the environment through a vent pipe, owing to a metal flaw in the core of the same Leningrad reactor. Sweden and Finland both queried the Soviet government about heightened levels of radiation detected in their countries.
• In 1977 half the fuel assemblies in the core of the Beloyarsk nuclear reactor melted. The Soviet account does not explain what caused this accident, but it notes that repairs took about a year, "during which personnel of the station were over-irradiated."
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