One of the principle and and historically most significant U.S nuclear installations of all, the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor had reported a leak this weekend and resulted in the evacuation of more than 150 employees of the facility.

The Three Mile Island nuclear reactor, located in Middletown, Pennsylvania issued an airborne radiological contamination alarm at about 1600 hours local time on Saturday in the facility’s Unit 1 containment building. The nuclear was recently brought online after an extensive refueling, maintenance and steam generator replacement carried out by Exelon Nuclear, the company that is responsible for the operations at Three Mile Island.

In a statement, Exelon Nuclear said,

“A monitor at the temporary opening cut into the containment building wall to allow the new steam generators to be moved inside showed a slight increase in a reading and then returned to normal. Two other monitors displayed normal readings.”

The same nuclear facility witnessed one of the biggest and the worst nuclear accident ever recorded in the United States’ history. The entire reactor suffered a partial meltdown in the year 1979, due to which the second reactor of the facility had to permanently shut down. Saturday’s radioactive leak at Three Mile Island has reportedly been confined to the interiors of the facility and so far there has been no threat to the health and safety of the public.

Via CNN.