meltdown

from WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006)

meltdown
    n 1: severe overheating of the core of a nuclear reactor
         resulting in the core melting and radiation escaping [syn:
         {meltdown}, {nuclear meltdown}]
    2: a disaster comparable to a nuclear meltdown; "there is little
       likelihood of a meltdown comparable to the American banking
       collapse in March 1933"

from The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (8 July 2008)

network meltdown
meltdown

   <networking> (By analogy with catastrophic failure of a
   nuclear reactor) An event that causes saturation, or near
   saturation, of a network.  Network meltdown usually results
   from illegal or misrouted {packets} (see {Chernobyl packet})
   and typically lasts only a short time.  It may also be caused
   by a {hardware} fault.  It is the network equivalent of
   {thrashing}.

   [{Jargon File}]

   (2004-02-17)