The China Syndrome (1979)

Michael Alaimo: Greg Minor

Quotes 

• Greg Minor : [reviewing the film footage that Richard had secretly taken while at the nuclear power plant during the emergency]  Whatever stuck valve it was, it's forcing them to deal with the water level. From their behavior, it looks pretty serious. As I remember the control layout, the annunciators they seem concerned with are also in the area of the core water level. I dunno... they might have come close to exposing the core.

  Dr. Lowell : If that's true, we came very close to the China Syndrome.

  Kimberly Wells : The what?

  Dr. Lowell : If the core is exposed for whatever reason, the fuel heats beyond core heat tolerance in a matter of minutes. Nothing can stop it. And it melts down right through the bottom of the plant, theoretically to China. But of course, as soon as it hits ground water, it blasts into the atmosphere and sends out clouds of radioactivity. The number of people killed would depend on which way the wind is blowing. Render an area the size of Pennsylvania permanently uninhabitable, not to mention the cancer that would show up later.

• Greg Minor : [re evidence of a nuclear power plant accident]  I may be wrong, but I'd say you're lucky to be alive. For that matter, I think we might say the same for the rest of Southern California.