

A tearful Wells concludes her report and the news cuts to a commercial for microwave ovens. Plant officials try to paint Godell as emotionally disturbed, but are contradicted by a distraught Spindler on live television saying Godell was not crazy and would never have taken such drastic steps had there not been something wrong. The resulting SCRAM is brought under control only by the plant's automatic systems, and the plant suffers significant damage as the pump malfunctions. Before dying, he feels the unusual vibration again. A SWAT team forces its way in, the television cable is cut, and Godell is shot. Minutes into the broadcast, plant technicians deliberately cause a SCRAM so they can distract Godell and retake the control room. Plant management agrees to the interview in order to buy time as they try to regain control of the plant. Grabbing a gun from a security guard, he forces everyone out, including his friend and co-worker Ted Spindler, and demands to be interviewed by Wells on live television.
Dramatic meltdown synonym full#
He takes refuge inside the plant, where he finds that the reactor is being brought up to full power. Godell is chased by the men waiting outside his home. Salas' car is run off the road and the radiographs are taken from him. Godell agrees to obtain, through Salas, the false radiographs to take to the hearings. Wells and Adams ask him to testify at the NRC hearings over Foster-Sullivan's plans to build another nuclear plant. Wells and Adams confront Godell at his home and he voices his concerns. Godell threatens to go to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, but Royce threatens him later, a pair of men from Foster-Sullivan park outside his house. Godell confronts Royce, an employee of Foster-Sullivan who built the plant, as it was he who signed off on the radiographs. He brings the evidence to the plant superintendent, who brushes him off as paranoid, stating that new radiographs would cost $20 million.
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Godell finds that a series of radiographs supposedly verifying the welds on the leaking pump are identical – the contractor simply kept resubmitting the same picture. He pushes to delay restarting the plant, but the plant superintendent wants nothing standing in the way of the restart. Adams steals the footage and shows it to experts who conclude that the plant came perilously close to meltdown – the China syndrome.ĭuring an inspection of the plant before it is brought back online, Godell discovers a puddle of radioactive water that has apparently leaked from a pump. Wells' superior refuses her report of what happened. Īdams has surreptitiously filmed the incident, despite being asked not to film for security reasons. The crew urgently pumps water back in and celebrates in relief at bringing the reactor back under control. Godell taps the first gauge, which immediately unsticks and drops to indicate very low levels.

Another operator notices a second gauge indicating low water levels. In response to a gauge indicating high water levels, Godell begins removing water from the core, but the gauge remains high as operators open more valves to dump water. Shift Supervisor Jack Godell notices an unusual vibration in his cup of coffee.

While visiting the Ventana nuclear power plant outside Los Angeles, television news reporter Kimberly Wells, her cameraman Richard Adams and their soundman Hector Salas witness the plant going through a turbine trip and corresponding SCRAM (emergency shutdown). The film received four nominations at the 52nd Academy Awards Best Actor (for Lemmon), Best Actress (for Fonda), Best Original Screenplay and Best Art Direction. Reviewers praised the film's screenplay, direction, and performances (most notably of Fonda and Lemmon), while it grossed $51.7 million on a production budget of $5.9 million. It became a critical and commercial success. It was theatrically released on March 16, 1979, twelve days before the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, which gave the film's subject matter an unexpected prescience. The China Syndrome premiered at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival, where it competed for the Palme d'Or while Lemmon received the Best Actor Prize. " China syndrome" is a fanciful term that describes a fictional result of a nuclear meltdown, where reactor components melt through their containment structures and into the underlying earth, "all the way to China". It follows a television reporter and her cameraman who discover safety coverups at a nuclear power plant. The film stars Jane Fonda, Jack Lemmon, Michael Douglas (who also produced), Scott Brady, James Hampton, Peter Donat, Richard Herd, and Wilford Brimley. The China Syndrome is a 1979 American disaster thriller film directed by James Bridges and written by Bridges, Mike Gray, and T.
