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The Chernobyl Disaster Chernobyl

A World Class Disaster

World opinion towards nuclear power changed following the events of April 26th 1986. The accident at the Chernobyl Power Plant near Pripyat in the Ukraine was the world's worst nuclear accident or explosion. It was forty times greater than Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan.



Countdown to Meltdown

Whilst early morning tests to monitor the electricity capacity of the generators were being carried out, one of the four reactors was operating at a very low capacity, thus rendering it unstable. A planned shutdown was delayed following a demand from Kiev to increase power for industrial production. This power increase resulted in a dangerous rise in reactor activity. The warning alarms prompted immediate shutdown. The reactor was badly designed causing power increase instead of decrease and eventual explosion.



Poor Choices

The plant Directors were not sufficiently trained, which lead to incorrect decisions. The reactor was fed with water as coolant. This caused its destruction together with an emission of a cloud of super-heated steam into the atmosphere, spreading radioactive debris far and wide, with some even reaching Ireland

Delayed Evacuation

Evacuation was delayed and not strongly enforced. Thirty six hours elapsed before the children were eventually evacuated. Local residents were recruited for fire fighting purposes. Their attire was totally unsuitable and they were exposed to very high levels of radiation. Eventually the Kremlin admitted the disaster when the Swedish authorities reported the detection of high radiation levels.

Many thousands (over 10,000) of people were hospitalized in the days following the explosion and many more thousands (over 260,000) abandoned their homes and are still currently displaced. Initially the Kremlin admitted to less fatalities and casualties. Recently more accurate figures are being released.

The damaged reactor was covered in mass concrete by 600,000 'liquidators', i.e. clean-up workers. They completed the work in November 1986. There is a possibility that 125,000 workers could have died as a result of the effects of radiation. The foundations of the structure were inadequate to support the massive weight of the concrete, resulting in 1,000 square metres of holes and cracks appearing on the concrete, which continued to release radioactivity.

Shutdown

The Ukraine had a high demand for energy and continued to use the remaining reactors until 2001, despite their inherent design faults. Financial restraints prevented the purchase of alternative energy.

Lessons were not learnt as lesser explosions have since occurred, mainly due to power reduction within the reactor, faulty equipment and inexperienced staff. For instance, in 1992 another major disaster was narrowly avoided because 90% of the staff had been replaced, leaving inexperienced personnel operating the faulty equipment.
The decision to close the Plant came in April 2000 and finally, in December 2000 the plant was siad to be totally shut down, but locals will tell you otherwise and it is still in operation.

May Day

The May Day celebrations went ahead in Minsk as normal. Thousands of men, women and children were further exposed to radiation as the fallout continued to rain down on them.



Consequences

Health issues of enormous proportions resulted in Chernobyl - leukaemia and thyroid cancer in children being the main problems, together with severe physical deformities, with large scale mental illness.

Radioactive fallout caused disastrous environmental consequences. The livelihood of the mainly farming population was in ruins because their crops were unsaleable. Worse fate was to follow when, to prevent starvation, the people ate contaminated food. Surface and ground water were highly contaminated.

Wind borne radioactivity caused contamination in Poland, across Central Europe, into Russia and beyond. On April 30th Japan reported fallout and on May 3rd Germany withdrew severely contaminated vegetables from sale.

The attempted cover-up by the USSR was typical, first by denial and subsequently by an admission of small scale accident. News clips by USSR journalists of a 'land at peace', showing people at work and children at play were reported, totally ignoring the true plight of the population.

The Kremlin's state of denial resulted in an unprotected population being exposed to massive amounts of radiation. Warnings from the Belarusian Atomic Institute of Radioactive Safety and the Health Minister were totally ignored.

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