Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster Essay -- Chernobyl History Nuclear Essays P

Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster The Chernobyl disaster was the worst industrial disaster in the history of the world. On April 26, at 1:24am reactor number 4 at the Chernobyl plant blew up. The explosion was the result of an experiment that, due to human error, went awry. The operator at the time made the first mistake that lead to the disaster by disabling automatic shutdown mechanisms. When the operator then went to shut down the reactor from its unstable condition the poor design of the reactor and its systems caused a dramatic power surge within the reactor. Following the explosion radioactivity with an intensity equivalent to 500 of the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima at the end of World War II was measured in the atmosphere.2 Radioactive dust was carried as far away as Sweden where the disaster was first detected and reported.1 Directly after the accident, an area of 30 kilometers was declared restricted. Within this area about 116,000 people were evacuated. The numbers of people that have been affected (inclu ding but not limited to the amount of people that have died) from this disaster are not known due to poor documentation. Estimates have the number dead at about 15,000 people that have died as a direct result of the explosion. The people in the surrounding towns were exposed to radiation but the number that is questioned is how many rescue workers actually responded and were affected. Some statistics that have been studied are the affects that this disaster has had on local agriculture. Many different attempts have been made to control and clean up the contamination in local agriculture areas. Even though these attempts have been made many large areas of agriculture land are still excluded from use. The local forests con... ...ll never know. Twenty plus years has passed since the Chernobyl disaster and the United Nations recognizes three to four million children that are suffering from that disastrous day in April of 1986.8 The worldwide change that has come about since the disaster is the only positive thing we can take from it. The updated nuclear technologies and safety measures that can be attributed to Chernobyl came with one huge price, human life. Sources Cited: http://home.swipnet.se/~w~33296/EFFECTS.HTM. (#1) http://www.power-technology.com/projects/chernobyl/ (#2) http://www.nea.fr/html/rp/chernobyl/c06.html (#3) http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/fschernobyl.html (#4) http://www.greenfacts.org/chernobyl/l-2/5-social-economic-impacts.htm#3 (#5) http://www.uic.com.au/nip22.htm (#7) http://www.chernobyl-international.org/ (#8)