...Chernobyl: The Ongoing Disaster On April 26, 1986, there was a blast of the fourth reactor of a Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine. As a result, there was a huge release of radioactive substances into the atmosphere. This nuclear fallout was precipitated mainly in Europe, but especially in large areas of Belarus, the Russia Federation and Ukraine. The consequences of the Chernobyl explosion keep negatively affecting human health and environment, so people should stay away from this region. First and foremost, the consequences of Chernobyl are still dangerous to human health. Untimely, incomplete and contradictory official information about the disaster significantly increased the number of victims. Neither on April 26 nor 27 were residents warned of the dangers, and they were not given any recommendations on how to behave in order to reduce the effect of radioactive contamination ("What Is Chernobyl?"). The Chernobyl disaster has had a significant effect on the mental health and well-being of an entire generation of people. The fact that the affected population is considered more as "victims" rather than "people who have survived after the accident" has led to the fact that they have feelings of helplessness and an inability to control their future ("Health Effects of the Chernobyl Accident"). Since the half-life of different radioactive substances released into the environment as a result of the accident ranges from several days to several thousand years, staying...
Words: 895 - Pages: 4
...The topic I have chosen for my research paper is Chernobyl disaster that happened on 26 April 1986 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant in Ukraine (then officially Ukrainian SSR). Chernobyl is considered to be the worst nuclear power disaster in the history. I will be talking about what caused such a big accident, effects of it for the country and the world, crisis management and consequences for people and environment. Chernobyl disaster was caused by human error. There was a test to find out how long it needs cool the reactor if engineers shut down it using only the residual steam and coasting turbines for power to run the coolant pumps. To run this test they had to switch off several automated safety systems. The experiment didn’t work out and ended as the greatest disaster in the world. The number of people whose lives were affected by the disaster is enormous. An estimated 350 000 clean-up workers or "liquidators" from the army, power plant staff, local police and fire services were initially involved in containing and cleaning up the radioactive debris during 1986-1987. About 240 000 liquidators received the highest radiation doses while conducting major mitigation activities within the 30 km zone around the reactor. Later, the number of registered liquidators rose to 600 000, although only a small fraction of these were exposed to high levels of radiation. It also resulted in an impossible to count number of Thyroid cancer cases that often result in death. The entire nearby...
Words: 438 - Pages: 2
...Chernobyl April 26 1986 BEEP!! BEEP!! WARNING!! WARNING!! As Jeff turned on the radio, he heard the blaring voice of an announcer. There is a core meltdown of reactor 4 at Chernobyl. Explosion of the nuclear power plant eminent!! All citizens of Pripyat evacuate immediately!! Jeff just had time to react to these words when he heard a sudden explosion. BOOM!! Quickly, Jeff ran down the stairs of the apartment and saw many people groggily getting up to see what had happened. Seeing so many people in dangers path, Jeff quickly pulled the fire alarm. “Great,” Jeff thought “Saved a bunch of people.” Jeff then ran to his car, put the key into the ignition and drove as quickly as he could, caring only about his own safety. After driving for a few minutes Jeff’s car glided to a halt in the middle of the highway. Jeff had forgotten that he had no more gas. As Jeff ran away from his car the air became more and more hazy. Radiation was everywhere. Jeff stumbled to a halt and fell to the ground. It became harder and harder to breathe. “No,” thought Jeff. Then he passed out. 1min 24sec According to the Nuclear Energy Institute, there are currently 442 active nuclear power reactors worldwide. Of all of the reactors worldwide, 14 of them have been classified as accidents where the public has been exposed to large amounts of radiation. The most devastating of these incidents was the core meltdown of reactor 4 at Chernobyl, better known as the Chernobyl disaster. Today I am going...
Words: 755 - Pages: 4
...Chernobyl Accident 1986 * The Chernobyl accident in 1986 was the result of a flawed reactor design that was operated with inadequately trained personnel. * The resulting steam explosion and fires released at least 5% of the radioactive reactor core into the atmosphere and downwind * Two Chernobyl plant workers died on the night of the accident, and a further 28 people died within a few weeks as a result of acute radiation poisoning. * "There is no evidence of a major public health impact attributable to radiation exposure 20 years after the accident." * The day before the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, plant operators were preparing for a one-time shutdown to perform routine maintenance on reactor number 4 * On April 26, when extremely hot nuclear fuel rods were lowered into cooling water, an immense amount of steam was created, which — because of the RBMK reactors' design flaws — created more reactivity in the nuclear core of reactor number 4. The resultant power surge caused an immense explosion that detached the 1,000-ton plate covering the reactor core, releasing radiation into the atmosphere and cutting off the flow of coolant into the reactor. * A second explosion then, of even greater power than the first blew the reactor building apart and spewed burning graphite and other parts of the reactor core around the plant, starting a number of intense fires around the damaged reactor and reactor number 3, which was still operating at the...
Words: 379 - Pages: 2
...Chernobyl On April 26th 1986 the largest nuclear disaster, in the history of man, took place in Chernobyl, Ukraine 100Km north of Kiev. The disaster has been attributed to faulty reactor design, a lack of safety culture, and human error. The environmental ramifications from this disaster will be felt in this area for centuries to come. It is important to note that the RBMK-1000 reactors that were in use at the Chernobyl NPP were similar to the reactors used by the United States to make the fissile material for the nuclear bombs used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. This type of reactor was common in the early 1940’s and 1950’s in the US, but represented extremely antiquated technology for the 1980’s. This was partly due to the USSR isolating themselves both physically and politically from the rest of the world. On the night of April 26th 1986 the number 4 reactor was to be shut down for routine maintenance. It was decided to take advantage of this shutdown to determine whether, in the event of a loss of station power, the slowing turbine could provide enough electrical power to operate the main core cooling water circulating pumps, until the diesel emergency power supply became operative. The aim of the test was to determine whether cooling of the core could continue to be ensured in the event of a loss of power. This test had been carried out the previous year, but the power to the turbine ran down too rapidly, so new voltage regulator designs were to be tested. By noon...
Words: 1121 - Pages: 5
...INT1: TASK 1 The Chernobyl Disaster The Chernobyl disaster occurred on 26 April 1984 in what was known as Ukrainian SSR. “Reactor Four” was hit with a catastrophic power surge that caused the core to explode. This disaster is considered to the worst nuclear power plant accident in history. Only two nuclear accidents have reached the level 7 classification, the Chernobyl Disaster and the Fukushima Daiichi Disaster in 2011. Belarus suffered the worst of the fallout, receiving about 60% or the radiation. Understanding The first nuclear reactor was put into commercial use in Russia on June 26, 1954. Nuclear power plants are identified as Generation I, II, III+, and IV with Gen I being the earliest developments, and Gen IV being current generations. Gen I power plants are referred to as “prototypes” and were developed mainly to show proof that the concept could be achieved. Gen II reactors were made in the 1960’s and are commercial class designed to be economical and reliable lasting up to 40 years. Some examples of Gen II reactors are pressurized water reactors (PWR), boiling water reactors (BWR), and Vodo-Vodyanoi Energetichesky Reactors (VVER) Gen III reactors are basically Gen II reactors with state-of-the-art improvements in terms of fuel technology, thermal efficiency, construction, and safety systems. The Gen III reactors have an operational life span of about 60 years. Gen III+ reactors are based off Gen III designs...
Words: 572 - Pages: 3
...------------------------------------------------- The Chernobyl-accident Saturday the 26th April 1986, reactor number four exploded at the nuclear power plant near the town of Chernobyl in the former Soviet Union. It is widely considered to have been the worst nuclear power plant accident in history, and is one of only two classified as a level 7 event on the International Nuclear Event Scale - the other being the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in 2011. The accident had disastrous consequences - Many people died because of radioactive contamination, and the Chernobyl accident cost the former Soviet Union hundreds of billions of dollars, and some observers believe it may have hastened the collapse of the Soviet government. The reason why the disaster actually took place was because the engineer Nikolai Formin wanted to try an experiment. The nature behind this experiment was to check whether the turbines of the power plant could produce enough energy to keep the cool-down pumpers running until the emergency generator was automatically started (in order to continue the producing of energy). To successfully run this experiment they had to switch off the security system. As a part of the experiment they decreased the reactors energy level so that it only was supposed to use about 25 % of its capacity. For an unknown reason this didn’t happen. Instead the generator used under 10% of its capacity. They noticed they were losing control at this point, so they started all...
Words: 629 - Pages: 3
...The Chernobyl Disaster Misty Schworn Post-1945 History FALB11 Sec B DeVry University The Chernobyl Disaster The Chernobyl Disaster happened on April 26th 1986. It was described as the most horrifying environmental disaster in the world. Chernobyl was an obscure town in the north central Ukraine. The plant was located fifteen kilometers northwest of Chernobyl. The world first learned of the accident from Sweden, where unusually high radiation levels were noticed at one of the At 1:23 am technicians at the Chernobyl Plant took some erroneous actions that will impact the course of Soviet events without exaggeration. Human error is what basically caused the disaster. These operators of the fourth unit slowly allowed power in the reactor to fall to low levels as part of a controlled experiment gone wrong. “The purpose of the test was to observe the dynamics of the RMBK reactor with limited power flow. Twelve hours after power reduction was initiated, power reached 50 percent. Only one turbine was needed to take in the decreased amount of steam, so no. 2 was turned off. Power was then reduced to 30 percent. One of the operators made a mistake. Instead of keeping power at 30 percent, he forgot to reset a controller, which caused the power to plummet to 1 percent. Now water was filling the core, and xenon built up in the reactor. The...
Words: 3007 - Pages: 13
...Chernobyl and the Aftermath September 11, 2012 Chernobyl, near the border of Belarus and the Dnieper River, was a catastrophic nuclear accident that had occurred on April 26, 1986. This was a result of “reactor 4 at the Chernobyl Nuclear power plant exploded, triggering a graphite fire that lasted for 10 days” (Yablokov et al., 2010). As a result of the explosion and fire, weathering patterns throughout Europe and the Northern Hemisphere changed due to the large quantities of radioactive contamination that as released into the atmosphere. In Chernobyl on the day of the explosion, there was a sudden power outage and when the emergency shutdown was attempted, rather than the power turning off, there was an extreme strike in power output, which lead to explosions. The International Atomic Energy Agency calls Chernobyl to be “the foremost nuclear catastrophe in human history” (Yablokov, 2010). Also, according to the International Programme on the Heath Effects of the Cherobyl Accident (IPHECA), the radioactivity released by the explosion in Becquerel terms was 200 times that from Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs combined (Yablokov, 2010). Belarus, Ukraine, Russia, Western Europe, and other areas of the Northern Hemisphere were covered by a radioactive cloud as a result of helicopter pilots dropping over five thousand tons of boron carbide, dolomite, sand , clay, and lead as an attempt to suffocate the flames. Immediately after the...
Words: 918 - Pages: 4
...The Chernobyl Disaster Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow Written by: Heather Stover ENG135 October 2012 Professor Spencer Robinson Twenty-six years ago in April of 1986 the city of Chernobyl, located in north-central Ukraine on the Pripyat River, was virtually unknown. It was just an obscure city that you and I would never have known existed. Almost incidentally, the name of this city was attached to the V.I. Lenin Nuclear Power Plant located about twenty-five kilometers upstream from the city of Chernobyl. On April 26, the city's anonymity vanished forever when, during a test at 1:21 A.M., the No. 4 reactor exploded and released thirty to forty times the radioactivity of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This was due to the flawed reactor design in use at the plant. The world first learned of history's worst nuclear accident from Sweden, where abnormal radiation levels were registered at one of its nuclear facilities. (Adams, 1996) Ranking as one of the greatest industrial accidents of all time, the Chernobyl' disaster and its impact on the course of events for the Soviets can hardly be exaggerated. No one can predict what will finally be the exact number of human victims. Thirty- one lives were lost immediately, although it was initially reported as only two and the others were to have died from acute radiation poisoning. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians, Russians, and Belorussians had to abandon entire cities and...
Words: 1838 - Pages: 8
...Aftermath of Chernobyl Chernobyl remains as one of the worst nuclear disasters recoded in modern history. Even though the most severe consequences of the event occurred in the Soviet Union, this incident changed the course of modern European history. This event affects nuclear industry through the decline in nuclear power plants, anti-nuclear movements, arms agreements through nuclear disarmament, environmental movement, and more renewable energy sources. Chernobyl is a catalyst for Germany’s place as an anti-nuclear country as well as a leading developer in new renewable sources of energy for the modern world. Some background information about the Chernobyl disaster was initially discovered when a Swedish Nuclear power plant “set off warnings during a routine radioactivity check… When other nuclear power plants reported similar happenings, the authorities turned their attention to the Soviet Union, from which the winds were coming” due to the fact that the Soviet Union attempted to hide their serious nuclear problem. When the Soviet Union finally admitted the accident occurred, due to pressure by Sweden under UN treaties, the USSR claimed, “the Chernobyl accident was the first ever in a Soviet nuclear power plant” or in other words the first accident they admit to happen. According to the Encyclopedia of Russian History, the disaster ironically happened after a failed safety equipment test that blew off the roof of reactor four. It ultimately killed thirty-one people from the...
Words: 1667 - Pages: 7
...Voices from Chernobyl by Svetlana Alexievich is comprised of many personal accounts of the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl on April 26, 1986. The nuclear meltdown created by a destructed reactor caused a huge tragedy in Chernobyl. Workers, innocent citizens, and animals faced tremendous problems due to the catastrophe. They had many major health issues because radioactive chemicals were administered into their bodies and as a result, they just became very vulnerable to almost anything or anyone they touched. Any injury to their body can cause immediate harmful effects. Many people perished from the effects of radiation. Individuals who had been contaminated by the harmful radiation from the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant were actually called “Chernobylites.” (Alexievich 194). As a matter of fact, most of Europe was contaminated and affected by the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl in less than a week. (Alexievich 2). The effects of the nuclear disaster were so terrible that the people always lived in...
Words: 1623 - Pages: 7
...Background and literature Review The Chernobyl accident was a disastrous nuclear event that happened on 26th April 1986 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine. The Chernobyl disaster is classified as a level 7 event according to the International Nuclear Event Scale (only two events have been classified this high in the past) and has caused damages that consist of the cost of 500,000 workers and 18 billion rubles, 31 deaths according to the Soviet casualty count (this is still being disputed) and between 4000-27000 affected future deaths due to radiation exposure [G1]. Casual Chain The main reason that could be attributed to the cause of the Chernobyl accident was due to the irregular condition of the reactor on the day. On that day the reactor was undergoing a test designed to access its safety margin in a particular set of circumstances. The combination of the lack of necessary safety measures and basic engineering implementations that should have been erected during these conditions was not put forth and the added factor that this test coincided with a scheduled shut-down of the reactor greatly contributed to the cause of failure. Poor Staff and poor operation handling. Environmental disasters Poor computer or reactor design system Non-routine operation and violation of rules Reactor becomes unstable due to lack of stability from rods, power from generator, damaged from natural causes or slow reaction to rectify the stability problem through other means...
Words: 1607 - Pages: 7
...Chernobyl I am here to tell you about a place called Chernobyl and the infamous Chernobyl Accident. This is a kind of creepy place in Russia where this accident happened. But i’m mainly here to tell you about the horrible “accident” that happened. What happened was on April 26, 1986 Early, and I mean EARLY in the morning, there were 4 nuclear plants. I know those are big words but they're gonna be used a lot. one of these plants was operated by Incompetent… people and they messed a lot of things up. then the 4th reactor started going wrong and started melting down. at this time, people tried to use emergency shutdown but a few seconds after that the was power outage. then it Broke down and started exploding and it did many HORRible things. One of which was release extreme amounts of radiation. a few more is it basically created thyroid cancer. it made anywhere NEAR this place impossible to live in and yeah, I got facts about all of it....
Words: 1049 - Pages: 5
...The Fatal Experiment of Chernobyl and its Long-Term Consequences The fatal experiment of Chernobyl, Ukraine, took place on April 25,1985, with which it was examined whether the turbines could still supply enough electricity to ensure the emergency cooling, or not. In order to let the experiment take place under realistic circumstances, the emergency program was shut off. The emergency program was responsible for the emergency cooling, and to bring in the nuclear fuel rods. For some reasons, the time for the experiment changed in short notice, so that the unprepared night shift on April 26 took over the execution of an experiment, whose experimental assembly had made the reactor unprotected. By an operating error of the inexperienced reactor operator, Leonid Thuptunow, the reactor power dropped shortly before the beginning of the experiment. The operator took out some of the control rods, (where the atomic nuclear chain reaction can be controlled) and fell below the permissible minimum border of 28 control rods. Thus, the reactor was still more difficult to control, and in a dangerous safety condition. The deputy chief engineer of the power station, Anatolij Djatlow, nevertheless instructed the beginning of the experiment. The operators activated too many cooling pumps, so that the reactor, working with little capacity, could not evaporate the water flowing around it any longer. The water began to boil, and first hydraulic impacts were heard. The shift leader wanted to stop...
Words: 823 - Pages: 4
