ANNIVERSARY OF THE CHERNOBYL DISASTER

After the Desaster 

The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant disaster remains the worst nuclear accident in global history on terms of lives and overall costs, with effects being felt even in recent times.  It was the first level 7 nuclear accident when it happened on April 26th, 1986, with 2.000 dead and thousands more doomed.


In 1982, a core meltdown on reactor I led to its closure for several months but it wasn't made public until 1985.  The Soviet scientists soon realised that the reacting safety protocols were flawed.  If they were to lose all electrical power, the emergency generators that powered the cooling pumps took 60 seconds to get up to full speed, a dangerous time gap.
 

The systems are worked upon and tests are conducted in 1984 and 1985 to check the capability but they yielded negative results. As mentioned above the explosion took place due to a flawed reactor and the inadequately trained staff and the surrounding area was completely uninhabited for a year.  The resulting steam explosion and fires released at least 5% of the radioactive materials into the atmosphere.  The explosion caused the surrounding area to be completely uninhibited for years.  People being evacuated to safe locations are still in process.


On the 25th April prior to a routine shutdown, the reactor crew at Chernobyl began preparing for a test to determine how long the turbines would would spin to supply power to the main circulating pumps following the loss of main electrical power supply.  This test had been carried out in Chernobyl the previous year, but the power from the turbine ran down too rapidly, so new voltage regulators had to be tested.  The interaction of very hot fuel with the cooling water led to "fuel fragmentation" along with rapid steam production on an increase of pressure,  This overpressure caused a 1000 ton cover plate of the reactor to become partially detached.  Intense steam generation caused a steam explosion and releasing fission products in the atmosphere. A few moments later a second explosion threw out fragments from the fuel channels and hot graphite.   Two workers died as a result of these explosions.

   

The Chernobyl accident's severe radiation effects killed 28 workers in the first four months after the event.  Another 106 workers received doses sufficiently high to cause acute radiation sickness. And another 200,000 cleanup workers received a large amount of radiation in 1986-1987. Moreover, numerous cancer deaths have been attributed to this explosion. 


This deadly accident contaminated parts of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine, inhabited by millions of residents.  The World Health Organisation has been concerned about radioactive exposure to much larger areas.  The question is how do we prevent these terrible explosions to ever happen again.  Hopefully, new technology will help to make this possible.   

   

By Tuman Zhúmabaev