containment breach
Something got out
A containment breach is the failure of systems designed to keep something dangerous confined—radioactive material, a pathogen, a chemical spill.
The term gained broader currency through fiction involving escaped monsters or supernatural entities: SCP Foundation stories center on containment breaches.
More loosely, any situation where something meant to stay contained gets out: The leaked memo was a containment breach.
- escapeFlight from captivity
- quarantineIsolation preventing disease transmission
- alarmUrgent warning signal
- red alertTop emergency warning state
- code redUrgent crisis designation
protocol · emergency protocol · hazmat · hazmat suit · radiation · biohazard · leak · outbreak · facility · secure · safe room · clean room · perimeter · evacuation · contamination · meltdown · ground zero · airlock
- breachesrupture, violation, intrusion, break, infringement
- industrial accidentsindustrial accident, explosion, factory fire, mine explosion, mine disaster
- Nuclear EventsChernobyl, Fukushima, Three Mile Island, meltdown, core meltdown
- nuclear securitynon-proliferation, nonproliferation, weapons inspectors, nuclear facility, nuclear site
- toxic spillschemical spill, oil spill, toxic leak, acid spill, fuel spill
- SCP Foundationanomaly, Euclid, Safe, MTF, anomalous
contain, containment, contained, container, containers, containing, contains, containable, uncontained