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In April 1986, the Soviet Union's Chernobyl nuclear plant exploded
letting out a massive amount of radiation that would debate of all
Russian citizens for hundreds of years to come. At exactly 1:21 am. on
April, 1986 in Chernobyl, a city near the Pripiat River the No. 4
reactor exploded and released thirty to forty times the radiation of
the Nagasaki and Hiroshima bombing. The exact causes of the explosion
are not known , however scientists and researchers, under thorough
investigation, have uncovered possible causes to the explosion.1 The
main reason why the explosion occurred was that, the operators of the
plant were attempting to conduct an experiment with the emergency
cooling system turned off, they made six fatal errors which sealed
everyone's fate. Soviet officials clamed that if the technicians, would
have avoided at least one of those mistakes, then the plant could have
been saved.
The technicians began the test one day before the explosion. They
started reducing the reactor's power level so they could run the
turbine experiment. However in order for the plant to run at lower
power they had to turn off the automatic control system, which powered
all emergency limitations that the plant should make in case it goes
out of control. Turning of the cooling system was an unnecessary action
and though it did not cause the explosion, it made the consequences
more fatal. Just then the operator's receive a call from the local grid
controller in Kiev, who needed the power and asked the technicians to
stop lowering it, at what they obeyed. Once that was done the reactor
was running with out the cooling system , which was a very serious
mistake. At 11:10 p.m. the grid controller said he no longer needed the
power, and the operators returned to reducing the power. At twenty
minutes past midnight the operators forgot to set the regulator
properly, it was the second fatal error. Because of the incorrect
regulator settings the reactor's power crashed to 30 MW from 1,000 MW
which is too low for the test. At that point the operators would have
abandoned the experiment, but they attempted to rescue it, for the next
time they would be able to conduct would be in one year only. The
senior authorities who had ordered the test would have been furious and
would have found out the regulator problem. So the operators decided,
to pull out the stops to restore the reactor's power.2 Their third
fatal mistake, was the pulling out of control rods. The plant's rule
was to have thirty in at all times however they left all but six. By
1:00 Am the power risen to 200 MW, which was still to low for the
experiment, however the operators continued. In a few minutes they made
their fourth fatal error, by turning on two extra pumps to join the six
that wee already cooling the core. This procedure under such low power
caused a massive steam disorder. Their fifth fatal error was the
turning off of the automatic shut off, which would turn off the
reactor. At 1:23 a.m. on Saturday April 26, the workers began the
actual experiment. They made their sixth error, by turning off the last
safety system. It took the shift manager thirty seconds to realize what
was happening and shouted at another operators to press button AZ-5
which would driven all the control rods back into the core, but because
the rods were melted from serious heat they didn't fit properly into
the core. As the manager gloomy eyed looked down at the control panel
several loud banging noises were heard. Immediately the one thousand
tone roof of the reactor blew off sky high, and brought down the giant
two hundred tone refueling crane onto the core, destroying more cooling
systems and 30 fires spread around the plant. Finally the over-heating
and steam build up caused a second explosion which destroyed the
reactor and part of the building. The graphite began to burn
ferociously once exposed to air, as core reached temperatures as high
as 2,800o F a massive amount of radioactive dust was let out into the
air which was picked by winds and carried thousands of miles into every
direction. As well, previous to the testing the technicians, drew up
plans, but did not discuss them with physicists or nuclear safety staff
at the plant. Though they send experiment plans to the designers of the
plant, the designers never got a chance to take a look and never issued
any authority or made any confirmation. All soviet officials were
certain that the explosion occurred not because of the plant, but
because of human negligence. "The engineer who designed the plant and
it's safety systems did not include such a scenario in his project"
said Valeri Legasov, fist deputy director of the Kurchatov Atomic
Institute. During an interview with Legasov, he stated that many
discussions about the test have been going on and not everyone agreed
to the test ever being conducted. However not everyone was satisfied
with the ignorant technicians theory and researchers proposed an
additional theory. Unlike Chernobyl the power plants in the rest of the
world have a contaminant structure which is a huge reinforced concrete
dome designed to prevent radioactive materials from escaping during an
accident. Like one West German nuclear scientist Rudolf Schulten said
"The reactor itself is a very old-fashioned type, and the safety
philosophy of this reactor would never be accepted today by any country
in the Western World." A U.S official agrees and sais that "Has it been
designed as reactors in the U.S and the rest of the world the reactor
would not have been destroyed. 6
When the reactor exploded and the core began to burn Soviet
officials tried as hard as they could to put out the fire. It took them
twelve long days to finally put out the deviating fire. Unlike in any
other explosion where the radioactive materials would remain buried in
the ground the Chernobyl graphite fire sucked in oxygen and spewed
radioactive isotopes in the air. 7 Immediately without any explanation,
residents from the Chernobyl area were quickly evacuated. Over 50,000
people were transported by Kiev buses. Only by Monday morning did
people start getting suspicious. Monitoring stations in other parts of
the country reported radiation levels up to one hundred times normal.
By that afternoon Swedish scientists found isotopes like krypton,
xenon, iodine, cesium and cobalt in the fallout-a radioactive mix that
could only have come from an accident of a reactor. The Swedes
concluded that a meltdown occurred somewhere. Later on they determined
when the cloud arrived and what rout it took, so the began
backtracking. They were able to draw a line going through Latvia over
Moscow and into Minsk. However further testing proved that Cernobyl was
the site of the meltdown. In Kiev things were going smooth joggers
jogged, kids played outside and life was going just the same. However
other countries were well aware of what was going on and immediately
evacuated more then 200 tourists out of Kiev. But even though that
Soviet Union claimed that it was not dangerous to be outside radiation
levels soared, and the government gave out an iodine solution to
children under 16, and as far as Tokyo it was recommended in newspapers
not to drink rainwater. In an interview in Hamburg, Yeltzin said that
49,000 people have been evacuated and that 20 to 25 people were
seriously ill, and that 40 more people received fatal doses of
radiation "but definitely not hundreds or thousands as reported by the
Western press."
However the festivities in Kiev were in progress and parades with
flashing red flags covered the streets. Poland was the country worst
affected by the radiation in all of Europe toddlers were treated with
iodine and milk was dumped out. In other countries radiation spread as
well. In Italy border patrols halted thirty two freight cars loaded
with cattle, sheep and horses from Poland. After a week they send it
back and banned all imports of meat, livestock and vegetables. In
Britain Members of London Festival Ballet canceled the Soviet Union
tour which would be the first one in twenty five years. Besides that a
wide concern spread through all about milk and water. In West Germany,
citizens were urged to keep children inside and stay out of the rain
which carried radiation. 8 In Minsk all were advised to stay inside,
shut the windows and wash often. As well not to eat leafy vegetables,
not at too much meat and also stay out of the rain. Iodine pills were
distributed among all. Radiation spread as far as Ottawa, Canada where
radiation was six times as much as normal rates. With the worry of
citizens all shipment of fruit from Europe was stopped. Even in upstate
New York radiation was found and many went out to buy iodine tablets.
With all the radiation killing and injuring people Soviet Union
successfully covered up the truth from all the citizens and reporters
fro a long time. "People were clueless" my own mom said "We carried on
life as usual, looking back now I realize now, that the government
didn't give a dam about the people, otherwise they would have stopped
pretending to be such a perfect country and fess up" she added. Indeed
the Soviet government held back the truth and left it's people wander
the streets of death. Only after violent protests from Sweden and some
Western countries did Soviet Union admitted that the disaster occurred.
However they told such limited information that awful rumors began to
spread. Some said that more than 2,000 people died and were bulldozed
into large graves. 10
Most Soviet citizens were disappointed in the president, because
Gorbachev promised that once he became president all secrecy was to
end. However when Gorbachev was asked to tell more, the Kremlin shut
it's doors and acted same as they did many years ago. It wasn't bad
enough that the Kremlin covered up the deaths the put the people in
imminent danger only for saving their face. 11 But to others, outside
from soviet Union the cover-up was of no surprise. Disasters ranging
from plane crashes to fires were never admitted to anyone. In 1957 when
a nuclear-waste pant exploded and spewed contaminants over hundreds of
square miles in the southern Ural Mountains. More then hundreds of
people died, and for years afterward the area was a radioactive
wasteland. Only in the 1970s did a Russian scientist in exile, Zhores
Medvedev, published the story. Even then, the Kremlin did not
acknowledge that, the explosion ever happened. Many Russians accept the
Soviet government's actions, to cover up any bad things.
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