Essay on The Disaster at Chernobyl

Not many people fully know what happened at Chernobyl, or understand the effect it has had on today’s nuclear science. Chernobyl has been named as the largest man-made disaster ever recorded. Chernobyl is the most influential and important event during the 1980’s because it has completely changed how the world views anything nuclear by changing experimentation and usage of nuclear materials and power as a whole. It was extremely influential because it caused thousands of people to move out of their homes, while damaging nearby cities and countries and covering the surrounding area in radioactive smog, and is still a threat to surrounding cities and countries today. It also has caused the nearby area to be thriving with wildlife.

On April 26, 1986, a nuclear reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant experienced a catastrophic meltdown that emitted radioactive material into the atmosphere, killing 31 people.

(Events of Fukushima Nuclear disaster) The Fukushima Nuclear disaster had many effects on the environment and health, some of its effects on the health are, infection of skin and that is mainly caused because of radiation and chemicals in the water after the incident and little supply of clean water, it also impacted the citizens physiologically (mainly the mothers, kids and workers) who might have diseases as anxiety and depression, problems in pregnancy, related to deficiency of iodine in the body, and some hormones not functioning properly, all these causes might lead to still birth, and miscarriage and finally, radiation syndrome which is caused because of the release of massive amounts of radiation, spread of cancer (as thyroid cancer) because of radiation, and ascend of genetic inheritable diseases As in Diagram 2 (Health Concerns in Fukushima), we can signify that the percentages of cancer increased highly because of the disaster in comparison to nowadays and especially between people of ages (1month-20years)

(1)At 1:23 am on April 26th 1986, 2 explosions devastated a nuclear power plant in Chernobyl. These explosions unleashed huge amounts of toxic radiation into the atmosphere. This radiation created a toxic plume of radiation that not only devastated Chernobyl but affected almost the whole of Europe. It started with total evacuation of the city, this started within 24 hours of the disaster and immediately an exclusion zone was in place. What the Ukrainian officials didn’t know at the time is just how serious this was. The wind blew the plumes created by this explosion one plume north and one plume west. The plumes were highly toxic and had been contaminated by the nuclear radiation. The radiation going west even reached north wales and many parts of Scotland and the south of Ireland. The radiation going north badly affected Finland, Sweden and parts of Norway. To put that into perspective the disaster released at least 100 times more radiation than the atom bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

The accident happened when “the operators were conducting a test simulating loss of power at the plant”(Klevans 347). Meanwhile when this test was happening most of the safety systems were shut down. A test of this type would never be sanctioned “in the United States, Western Europe, or Asia”(Klevans 347). As a result a colossal amount of radioactivity was released into Western Europe which had a stupendous impact on the health of many people. Through 1990 to 1998 about 1800 children were repulsed to the radioactivity and had thyroid cancer. These children lived “in the contaminated areas of Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine”(Klevans 350). After the accident the “engineers from the former Soviet Union have made changes to all RBMK reactors to eliminate the possibility of repeating this type of accident”(Klevans 350). As a result the radioactivity that was released is now ingrained in Pripyat and in the periphery of some

Radiation is part of the aftermath of war. In “Thunder in Roses” people everywhere are affected. The author stated “The air is becoming radioactive.” (Sturgeon 191). Only a few million people were left after the war hit them. Most of the bombs that hit the states were nuclear. “So saturated is the atmosphere with Carbon Fourteen

People and animals were affected badly some died from the chernobyl explosion. Many died from it because it was so bad,

Radiation was passed on from cows. During Chernobyl radioactive iodine was deposited in pastures. Pastures are the homes of many farm animals such as cows. The cows ate the radioactive iodine, so they were contaminated. Milk is sold to the stores, and set on the shelves for the people to buy. Children then drank the contaminated milk, so they got thyroid cancer,

The town part of Chernobyl had become a sanctuary The trees from around the disaster turned into a ginger color calling the area Red forest but they got cut down later (Lallanilla Marc). In the end the accident resulted in 70,000 people disabled 25,000 deaths in which 20% committed suicide from how bad the chemicals hurt them. Contamination won't be for over 100 years and Chernobyl won't be habitable for 20,000 years this overall caused a lot of

People there lived a lot shorter than they should. “The nuclear power plant accident in the Ukraine town of Chernobyl. It was initially covered up by the Soviet government, compounding the health crisis, while further sowing the seeds of distrust within the constituency, as the extent of the disaster and the cover-up came to light. ”(Worldology LLC) The fall of this power plant made health a lot worse for the people.

There have been lots of nuclear accident around the world. One of the accident that had a major impact on the world was the Chernobyl disaster. The disaster took place on 26 April 1986 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine. The disaster was caused by a reaction explosion induced by design faults and staff application errors. The accident took place in the course of scheduled tests to check the power supply mode in the event of external sources loss. Even after 10 days, explosions and ejections of radioactive substances continued. The release of radiation and radioactive substance polluted the places within 30 km of Chernobyl, and those areas have been closed for a long period of

Early in the morning of April 27, 1986, the world experienced its largest nuclear disaster ever (Gould 40). While violating safety protocol during a test, Reactor 4 at the Chernobyl power plant was placed in a severely unstable state, and in a matter of seconds the reactor output shot up to 120 times the rated output (Flavin 8). The resulting steam explosion tossed aside the reactor’s 1,000 ton concrete covering and released radioactive particles up to one and a half miles into the sky (Gould 38). The explosion and resulting fires caused 31 immediate deaths and over a thousand injuries, including radiation poisoning (Flavin 5). After the

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].

The main reason for the mishap is by now well recognized (Petryna 1). However, initially the Chernobyl catastrophe baffled the minds of people in the 20th century and definitely left the people of Ukraine disordered while living in anxiety. Now, without question, the public knows that the accident at Chernobyl was the result of a disastrous combination of ignorance from the Ukrainians and complacency from the Soviets in control of Ukraine at the time. As according to American physicist and Nobel laureate Hans Bethe, “…the Chernobyl disaster tells us about the deficiencies of the Soviet political and administrative system rather than about problems with nuclear power." The immediate basis of the Chernobyl accident was a mismanaged electrical-engineering experiment (Rhodes "Chernobyl", PBS). While, the indirect source of the calamity was an industrial malfunction of a Soviet made nuclear-based machine. Ironically, the Chernobyl accident occurred during a test run, which was conducted to improve plant safety. This accident proved once more what experienced control engineers have all learned: that a process must be understood before it can be controlled. (Liptak “Control Global”). Engineers with no familiarity of reactor physics were interested to see if they could draw electricity from the turbine generator of the Number 4 reactor unit to run water pumps during an emergency, when the turbine was no longer being driven by the reactor but was

The disaster took place on April 1986, and was caused by inexperienced staff. When the power plant had to undergo a special test, to make sure that sufficient amount of cooling water would be supplied to the reactor in case of a power outage. However, the test had been delayed, because the national grid required the power output more than the expected time. Hence, the test was postponed after midnight where the night shift had to come. The night shift had little experience about such a test as most of them were electrical engineers rather than nuclear. On the other hand, the night shift had to perform the test before the grid needed the power again, otherwise they would have all been fined or fired. Consequently, lead to an unnecessary pressure on the personnel, which in turn increased the probability of making incorrect