This video talks about making bigger nuclear bombs, which required huge amounts of Tritium. Windscale was ordered to make 500% more Tritium in order to make bigger bombs. They did this by increasing the heat in the reactor and taking off shielding from the core material. Scientists warned of impending disaster, but the politicians and military ignored them.

Details how fire broke out in reactor core, and how the secret was kept. Uranium was burning inside the reactor, stimulated by the air fans used to normally cool the reactor. Uranium dust was coming out of the vent stack, but no one was warned. A rumor spread around town that the plant was on fire, but on official announcement was made. Half the village left town. There was no emergency plan to deal with the fire.

They tried pouring water on the nuclear fire, but that did not put the fire out, until they turned the air off. The fire went out quickly with a combination of water and no air moving through the reactor. It took about 24 hours for the official announcement to come out that a small fire had broken out, but that all radiation had blown out to sea, when actually it was blowing over the nearby town. The government ordered all milk from 250 square miles to be thrown out. A top secret inquiry found out that the military production of tritium and plutonium caused the fire. McMillan ordered that the whole inquiry and report about it be kept secret. Safety issues were ignored completely.

The coverup was complete. The plant operators were blamed for the fire, instead of the military pushing for more tritium and plutonium production from the plant. An official summary white paper was produced later, saying it was a minor accident, leaving out most of the details, and blaming it all on “operator error”. Shortly after that, a hydrogen bomb was exploded, with a one Megaton rating, which the politicians and military were very proud of.