On April 26, 1986, a catastrophic accident occurred at the nuclear power station in the city of Pripyat, Ukraine, in the former USSR.
The disaster began during a systems test at reactor number four of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. There was a sudden surge of power output, and when an emergency shutdown was attempted a more extreme spike in power output occurred, which led a reactor vessel to rupture and a series of explosions. These events exposed the graphite moderator of the reactor to air, causing it to ignite. The resulting fire sent a plume of highly radioactive smoke into the atmosphere and over an extensive geographical area. The plume went on to drift over large parts of the western Soviet Union and Europe. According to official post-Soviet data about 60% of the radioactive fallout landed in Belarus.
Experts say a big factor behind the disaster was the unusual and poor design of the reactor, known as RMBK, particularly its propensity to sudden power surges—as happened at Chernobyl.
In addition, and unlike elsewhere outside the Soviet Union, there was no containment structure shielding the reactor to stop radioactivity escaping!
According to the World Nuclear Association, the accident was also due to “the violation of operating procedures and the absence of a safety culture”.
Furthermore, the aftermath was poorly handled, with officials slow to evacuate locals and Moscow sending 600,000 “liquidators” with little or no protective gear to put out a fire that raged for 10 days.
The first alarm was raised on April 28, 1986, not by Russia but by Sweden after it detected an unexplained rise in radiation levels. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev did not admit the disaster had occurred until May 14!
With enormous public outrage around the world Chernobyl spurred an international push to improve atomic safety and reassure the public.
One of the most important steps was the 1989 creation of the World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO), which carries out “peer reviews” of 430 reactors around the world to detect problems.
The International Atomic Energy Agency expanded and revised safety standards and member states were required to report swiftly any incidents with potential cross-border effects.
from chernobylgallery.com & phys.org
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