A tunnel 'full of highly contaminated materials' may have collapsed at the Hanford nuclear site

Wikipedia

The Hanford nuclear site in Washington state, one of the largest storehouses of radioactive waste in the US, is currently undergoing an emergency.

Hanford, which is overseen by the US Department of Energy (DOE), posted an emergency bulletin on Tuesday that called on employees to evacuate and take shelter near "a former chemical processing facility".

The bulletin said the alert was triggered due to "concerns about subsidence [caving] in the soil covering railroad tunnels near a former chemical processing facility. The tunnels contain contaminated materials."

The facility in question is the 200-acre plutonium uranium extraction plant, or PUREX.

DOE

The mound of dirt that covers railroad tunnels to the Hanford site's PUREX facility.

Susannah Frame, a reporter with KING television in Seattle, posted on Twitter that the tunnel is "full of highly contaminated materials, such as hot, radioactive trains that transported fuel rods".

Lynne T., a member of the joint information center with the DOE (who would not provide her last name), said the "situation is evolving"and could not confirm whether the railroad tunnel - which she said hasn't been operated in about 20 years - had collapsed or not.

While "the tunnels do contain contaminated materials," she told Business Insider, "there's no evidence of any injuries, and all employees have been accounted for. There's also no confirmation that any radioactive material has been released."

She added that someone noticed "a small sunken area of soil that is on top of a tunnel" that leads to the PUREX facility, triggering the facility to put out an emergency alert and carry out a response plan.

"The Hanford Fire Department is on the scene and investigating it, and everyone is being sheltered," she said.

The Hanford emergency hotline representative also said that no one appears to be hurt at this time, and that approximately fewer than 10 people are currently in the PUREX facility.

According to the Hanford site:

"PUREX is slated to be decontaminated, demolished, and some of its debris removed. The rail cars buried next to the facility will also be decontaminated, removed, and permanently buried. Although, the option of grouting the rail cars in-place within the tunnel is being evaluated since removal of the cars would entail extreme worker safety hazards and would be more costly than grouting in-place."

This story is developing.