In 1986 there was a huge explosion and fire at the nuclear power plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine. The catastrophe lead to the reactor building being demolished and a large amounts of radiation released into the atmosphere. There are many things that lead to the disaster. There had been some safety measures ignored that day. The plant was comprised of four nuclear reactors that were called units. The unit labeled number four had been shut down earlier for a routine maintenance, and while this work was being done, it was decided to also perform a series of precautionary tests.
The uranium fuel in the reactor overheated and melted through the protective barriers. This was because of the fact that the reactors did not have what is known as a containment structure. A containment structure is a concrete dome that keeps radiation inside the plant. Unfortunately, radioactive elements including plutonium, iodine, strontium and caesium were scattered around this area. There were complications that arose resulting in two explosions in Unit 4 after the reactor experienced a power surge and overheated. The core and roof were destroyed, and fires quickly spread throughout the complex. The most destructive of these fires was the graphite fire which resulted in the dispersion of radionuclides and fission fragments into the atmosphere. The graphite blocks used in the reactors caught fire at high temperature, which added to emission of radioactive materials that went into the environment.
Almost half a million people were evacuated from their homes and uprooted from their communities as a result of high levels of contamination. The Chernobyl accident was a devastating event for much of the population in Belarus and Ukraine. Some 150,000 square kilometres in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine are contaminated and north of the plant site as far as 500 kilometres away. The entire town of Pripyat (population 49,360), which lay only three kilometres from the plant was completely evacuated 36 hours after the accident. During the next several weeks and months following the disaster another 67,000 people were evacuated from their homes in contaminated areas and relocated on government order. In total about 200,0000 people have been relocated as a result of the accident. Twenty years later, it is still not clear what the total health consequences have been for these survivors.
The uranium fuel in the reactor overheated and melted through the protective barriers. This was because of the fact that the reactors did not have what is known as a containment structure. A containment structure is a concrete dome that keeps radiation inside the plant. Unfortunately, radioactive elements including plutonium, iodine, strontium and caesium were scattered around this area. There were complications that arose resulting in two explosions in Unit 4 after the reactor experienced a power surge and overheated. The core and roof were destroyed, and fires quickly spread throughout the complex. The most destructive of these fires was the graphite fire which resulted in the dispersion of radionuclides and fission fragments into the atmosphere. The graphite blocks used in the reactors caught fire at high temperature, which added to emission of radioactive materials that went into the environment.
Almost half a million people were evacuated from their homes and uprooted from their communities as a result of high levels of contamination. The Chernobyl accident was a devastating event for much of the population in Belarus and Ukraine. Some 150,000 square kilometres in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine are contaminated and north of the plant site as far as 500 kilometres away. The entire town of Pripyat (population 49,360), which lay only three kilometres from the plant was completely evacuated 36 hours after the accident. During the next several weeks and months following the disaster another 67,000 people were evacuated from their homes in contaminated areas and relocated on government order. In total about 200,0000 people have been relocated as a result of the accident. Twenty years later, it is still not clear what the total health consequences have been for these survivors.