Chernobyl; Fukushima; The Spill at Dan River | 60 Minutes Full Episodes

Thirty years after the 1986 disaster, the Chernobyl reactor remains a dangerous site leaking radiation. A massive international project is underway to build an enormous protective arch, though the effort has been plagued by delays, funding shortages, and the ongoing challenge of managing radioactive contamination that will persist for centuries.

March 11, 2011, saw a massive earthquake and tsunami lead to a meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan. The disaster created a vast radioactive wasteland, displacing thousands of citizens, some of whom continue to struggle with personal loss and the uncertainty of whether they will ever be able to return home to their contaminated communities.

Following a massive coal ash spill into North Carolina's Dan River, scrutiny has fallen on Duke Energy and their historically poor record of disposing of toxic coal ash in unlined pits. The segment highlights the tension between industry standards, regulatory oversight, and the environmental urgency of properly managing hazardous industrial waste.