Analysis Of The Chernobyl Meltdown Essay, Research Paper
On April 1986, Soviet’s Union 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 inChernobyl, 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.