The Factors Leading to the Chernobyl Disaster

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The Chernobyl disaster on April 26, 1986 was one of the most dangerous nuclear explosions this world has ever seen, and some people are still paying the price. This disaster not only affected Europe, it affected the whole world. This was during the time of the Cold War, and it government corruption. The April 1986 disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine was the product of a flawed Soviet reactor design RBMK (reaktor bolshoy moshchnosti kanalniy) coupled with serious mistakes made by the plant operators. “It was a direct consequence of Cold War isolation and the resulting lack of any safety culture” (world-nuclear par 2). This disaster was caused by multiple things, human error among them. According to World Nuclear Association This terrible explosion was caused by a few things; however, human error played a big part in it. The World Nuclear Association describes the events of April 25th like this. The factory crew began running a test to see how long the turbines would spin and supply power to the main circulating pumps after a power failure. Twelve hours after the test started, the power reached 50 percent, which was supposed to happen because the test was simulating a power failure. Only one turbine was needed to take in the steam from 50 percent, so number two was shut off. Power then went down to 30 percent. This is where the human error comes in; the operator who was working with power forgot to reset a controller causing the power to drop to one percent. With only one reactor dropping to such a low level so quickly it couldn’t take all the water that was filling the core. The power was way too low for the test. There is an emergency shut off that usually would have shut the flawed system down, ... ... middle of paper ... .... Kinoy, Ernest. "Chernobyl: The Final Warning." Chernobyl: The Final Warning. Dir. Anthony Page. 1991. Web. Oracle ThinkQuest Library. Web. Oct, 2013. World Nuclear Association | Nuclear Power - a Sustainable Energy Resource. Web. 2013. Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Web. Oct. 2013. Barbalace, Roberta C. "Chernobyl Disaster's Agricultural and Environmental Impact." : Part Two of a Series (EnvironmentalChemistry.com). N.p., 1999. Web. 11 Oct. 2013. Roche, Adi. Chernobyl Children International. 2012. 06 Nov. 2013. British Broadcasting Corporation. BBC News. BBC, n.d. 7 Nov. 2013 The Chernobyl Gallery. n.d. 7 Nov. 2013 Kaufman, Rachel. “Returning to Abandoned Land.” National Geographic. National Geographic, 25 Apr. 2011. Web. 7 Nov. 2013 Meshkati, Najmedin. “Dr. Meshkati's Page on Chernobyl.” USC Viterbi School of Engineering. N.d. Web. 18 Nov. 2013

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