Essay On Chernobyl Accident

I have chosen to write my Environmental Engineering Fundamentals essay on the Industrial Accidents which have Environmental Consequences. The reason for this is the fact that I personally believe this is a huge problem in the world. It is very hard to monitor and to prevent however there are precautions which can be taken to try and minimize the effects on the Environment. In this essay I am going to talk about different Industrial accidents and there coinciding effects on the environment and how these effects could have been minimized.

Chernobyl (Nuclear Disaster)

Realistically there is no other place to start on this topic in place of the huge Chernobyl Disaster which occurred on the 26th of April in 1986. An accumulation of unexpected events lead to this disaster occurring and to the spread of radiation. The 26th of April was meant to be a routine day where by there was plans to test whether the turbines could produce sufficient energy to maintain the coolant pumps running in the event of a loss of power until the emergency diesel generator was activated. The thing I look at the most is the fact it is known that to prevent any interruptions to the power of the

It all occurred on the 3rd of December back in 1984 in Bhopal, India. Due to zero of six safety systems being functional in Union Carbides ethylene producing factory more than 27 tons of methyl isocyanate and other extremely harmful gases were released into the atmosphere of Bhopal. The Union Carbide factories own documents prove that the company had taken shortcuts on safety and maintenance in order to save money and also used unproven technology in the design of the plant. It is beyond me how this is allowed to happen with a plant that produces such dangerous chemicals and has the power to do such serious and widespread damage. In the early hours of the 3rd of December residents of Bhopal awoke to fits of coughing as there lungs began to fill with fluid, which lead to cardiac and respiratory arrest. In just the first few days there had been 8,000 deaths. In total it is believed that 20,000 people lost there lives in Bhopal due to this industrial accident. However this is totally outdone by the fact that from here on through generations of parents and kids the passing on of body defects and health issues is causing a huge amount of despair and anguish to people of Bhopal. The Indian government and Union Carbide negotiated in 1989 a figure of $470 million which is a mere slap in the face to families of the deceased as it

At about 10:00pm on April 20th the rig unexpectedly began to vibrate and natural gas, drilling mud and sea water began to shoot up well above floor level of the rig. The gas soon ignited and exploded causing the rig to catch fire instantly killing eight people and leaving 115 personnel scrambling for there lives. It took two days for the full rig to sink to the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. Due to this it was calculated that about 5,000 barrels per day (119 gallons) of oil was spilling into the gulf per day. The tough thing of the investigation into this disaster is that the people who know what went wrong either passed away in this terrible unfortunate disaster or else have been sequestered by the companies involved. Although there is known facts about the rig set