26 April 1986
31 People Killed (Initially)
335,000 people were evacuated
Reactor design from the point of security is bad, and difficult to operate. Both of these cause a dangerous operation.
- Atomic Energy Agency report in 1996 "Chernobyl Ten Years On"
A nuclear accident anywhere is a nuclear accident everywhere.
- From the 2001 NEA report, "Facts, Thoughts and Lesson from Chernobyl Accident."
Relentlessly
Between 1990 and 1998, has been diagnosed cases as many as 1791 cases of mumps in children of Ukraine, who lived in the area around the Chernobyl Nuclear Power plant. The experts have connected all of these cancers with the Chernobyl nuclear accident. Expected to be found more and more cases.
Defects in design
Chernobyl nuclear power plant using a nuclear reactor known as the RBMK-1000, built and designed by the Soviets, and then until now not used anywhere in the world.
RMBK-1000 using graphite blocks instead of chilled water. This was developed for two reasons: to generate electricity, and also provide the level of weapons-grade plutonium for the Soviet Union consistently is one of the side products graphite system. During the cold war, the Soviet Union was determined to produce weapons of eg, the equivalent of a nuclear weapons program the United States. With plutonium supply continuously and reliable then the Soviet Union could continue to expand their nuclear weapons, and simultaneously provide electricity for their country.
However, problems with RBMK-1000, as stated in the report "Chernobyl Ten Years On," is that this design is very dangerous, and has no tolerance for operator error, also does not have an operational routine for installed security error. In short, the type of reactor cooling water losing, then the reactor was started to reduce the cleavage rate (energy production), this by itself trying to reduce the heat loss caused by cooling. In the RBMK-1000, if the system loses cooling water, it will trigger more rapid cleavage, and the core becomes hotter. This is really contrary to the ideal response to the reduction of cooling water, and many countries trying to convince the Soviet Union that could be said to play with fire (nuclear). It is clear that the Soviets were willing to take risks in order to obtain plutonium.
In addition to the risks inherent in the way of energy production in RBMK-1000 design, other issues on the reactor dome is the lack of shelter. All the reactors the United States has a steel concrete storage vault, which will prevent radioactive leakage into the atmosphere during nuclear accidents. The Soviet people have also been warned about this, but they chose not to do anything.
On 26 April 1985, at 1:24 AM, 4 units of Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant exploded. Happens twice a huge explosion in three seconds. Which has undermined the roof of the building. Radioactive gas, collapsed buildings, large material from the reactor building, has been thrown into the air as high as two-thirds of a mile (1 km). cut pieces of reactor fuel into a hot flying through the air and fell within a range of nearly reached a mile (1.6 km) away, lit a radioactive fire that lit the area.
Two workers were killed instantly, and twenty-nine people wallow, in the radiation so high that they could say from that moment been killed, although most of them are still alive for several weeks in the hospital, and suffering the final stages of extreme radiation poisoning it. Hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated from the towns around it, countless animals are destroyed to avoid swallowing the meat that had been exposed to toxic radiation, and many European countries refuse shipment of rice from any area that is close to the Ukraine, asking the residents to wash all fruits and vegetables, although they are natives of their own country.
Chernobyl accident occurred because some workers tried to experiment and not officially low power, which includes the lethal action of emergency cooling system. By the time everyone realizes that the core becomes too hot, it was too late to reverse this process (they are not careful with letting the hot channel bend where fragments of fuel should be in there), the next thing they know is that the roof has flying, two people were killed, and a cloud of lethal gas had spread throughout the region.
Radioactivity from the Chernobyl explosion was detected until the end to the United States. Soviet leaders did not say a word about the explosion until two days later, on April 28th, when Swedish scientists reported an increase in atmospheric radioactive their own country, then tracked back to Chernobyl. Even after telling what had happened, the Soviet people did not have a way to respond to such a monumental disaster.
Chernobyl reactor finally put into a concrete structure, known as the sarcophagus. More than six hundred thousand workers, known as the "liquidator" working to clean the reactor and the construction of the sarcophagus. Cement layer of poorly built, and began to leak radiation several years after construction is completed. The more work done to ensure robustness it, but its safety is still questionable.
Chernobyl nuclear accident was the worst nuclear accident ever. The accident occurred shortly after the Three Mile Island accident, this only reinforced antinuclear movement, and has inspired many countries to create a new security regulations for the construction and operation of nuclear power plants are new.
As a long-term health effects, the spread of radiation from Chernobyl is estimated to result in hundreds of thousands of new cancer cases, and tens of thousands of them will end in death.
NEA report summarizes the impact of Chernobyl accident in the initial report in 2001:
The history of modern industry the world has been acting up time is affected by the disaster of equal or even more severe compared Chernobyl accident. However, this accident has a significant impact on human society. This not only causes severe health consequences, but also cause economic damage to industry and short-term and long-term consequences in terms of socio-economic turmoil, psychological distress, and destruction of nuclear energy picture. This is expected to last for a long time.
Fifteen years after the Chernobyl accident, the international community and trying to learn information to generalize this to the cases of smaller accidents. Hopefully, these lessons do not need to happen again in the incident with the size and scale of Chernobyl.*
* "Chernobyl Ten Years On." Nuclear Energy Agency, 1996.
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