Characterization of the cable fire in block I of the Greifswald nuclear power plant.

In December 1975 a cable fire was initiated in a stand-by power distribution by a short circuit and an incorrectly fitted diode. Unpredictably and accidentally some control and power cables were destroyed during the fire. This caused the failure of safety-relevant components. Decay heat removal was achieved initially by natural convection in the primary loop, and finally by an emergency feed pump in the secondary loop, for which a provisional power cable had been successfully installed after approximately 8.5 hours This serious accident was caused by human failure and lack of experience, by the insufficiency of the redundancies as provided in the plant design, by the lack of spatial separation of safety systems, and by insufficient quality control.