The Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster By Jude Vanne On April, 26th, 1986, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine exploded. It has been described as the worst nuclear melt down this world has ever seen. Located about 81 miles north of the city of Kiev, the four reactors at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant were designed and built during the 1970s and 1980s. A manmade reservoir, which was fed by the Pripyat River, was created to provide cooling water for the reactor. The day before the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, plant operators were preparing for a one-time shutdown to perform routine maintenance on reactor number 4. In violation of safety regulations, operators disabled plant equipment that included the automatic shut-downs. When …show more content…
The power surge caused a huge explosion that detached the 1,000-ton plate covering the reactor core, releasing radiation into the atmosphere and cutting off the flow of cool water into the reactor. A few seconds later, a bigger explosion erupted and blew the reactor building apart. It spewed graphite and other reactor parts causing fires around the property. The explosion killed two workers but over the next few days, with the failed containment, those numbers grew. On April 27th, the people living in Pripyat were evacuated. By that time some were complaining of vomiting, headaches and other forms of radiation sickness. Twenty-eight workers died in the first four months, some of them were “heroic”, because they risked their lives trying to contain the radiation. Within three months of the Chernobyl accident, a total of 31 people died from radiation exposure. More than 6,000 cases of thyroid cancer may eventually be linked to radiation exposure. Shortly after the radiation leaks, the trees in the forests surrounding the plant were killed by high levels of radiation. This region came to be known as the "Red Forest" because the dead trees