Chernobyl 30 Years On | Documentary | Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster
6Chernobyl 30 Years On | Documentary | Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster
How could the accident happen?
The Chernobyl accident is a human error, in which deliberate control and safety mechanisms were deliberately disabled to carry out a test. In doing so, it went very wrong.
On April 26 at 1:22 a.m., the test program was started, and automatic security was switched off. One minute later, technicians shut down the steam turbine. The reactor's cooling pumps began to fall silent, but the reactor's power increased (rather than decreased). A few seconds later, shocks were felt in the control room. Observers outside the power plant heard two blasts shortly after each other. Pieces of burning material were shot into the air and the building with the turbine caught fire.
In addition to human error, the unsafe design of the reactor was also a problem. The type of reactors used in Chernobyl is called RBMK, and differs profoundly from the type of reactors used in Europe and the United States. FOR example, RBMK plants are not equipped with an overarching building that completely insulates the nuclear reactor from the environment. This allowed the radioactivity to spread rapidly in the environment.
After the explosions, the reactor was completely destroyed. The reactor cover (a heavy concrete lid) was ripped off from the reactor and was crooked. The reactor core, made up of graphite blocks containing the fuel elements, was on fire. Immediately after the accident, the fire had to be extinguished. The accident was considered a category 7 accident on the INES scale, the highest possible value.
More information can be found here:
https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-security/safety-of-plants/chernobyl-accident.aspx
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/topics/reference/chernobyl-disaster/