Tip 1: Why there was an explosion in Chernobyl

Culture and Society

Tip 1: Why there was an explosion in Chernobyl

On the night of April twenty-sixth, on the fourthThe Chernobyl nuclear power plant had a terrible explosion. The first victims are two substation workers. The final number of victims of this tragedy is unlikely to ever be announced. The causes of the terrible tragedy still remain theories.

Theory number 1. Human factor

Immediately after the accident, they were the first to be guiltymanagers and management of the station. Such a conclusion was previously given by a special state commission of the USSR. This assumption was also expressed in the IAEA. The Advisory Committee, guided by the materials provided by the USSR, also concluded that the accident was the result of the coincidence of various violations of the rules for operating the station by operating personnel, which is unlikely. Such a large-scale catastrophic consequences of the accident was acquired due to personnel errors. For the same reasons, the reactor was transferred to an abnormal regime. According to the experts of the established committee, all these gross violations in the rules of operation of the station were to conduct the necessary tests at all costs. And this, despite the fact that the state of the reactor has changed. The technological protections that could have simply stopped the operation of the entire reactor were not launched in time, and the extent of the catastrophe in the early days after the explosion was hushed up.

Theory number 2. Disadvantages in the design of the nuclear reactor

In the USSR, after a few years still changed their mindsTo blame for all that happened is only the personnel of the nuclear power plant. The special commission of atomic supervision of the Soviet Union came to the conclusion that the accident itself was caused by the personnel. But such catastrophic scales it acquired only because of malfunctions in the very design of the reactor of the nuclear power plant, its shortcomings. This opinion has appeared at the IAEA, only a couple of years later. Their view of the accident, they published in a special report. It is also presented here that the main reason was errors in the design of the reactor and its design. Errors in the work of the staff here also sounded, but as an additional factor. The report points out that the main mistake was that the workers still supported the reactor operation in a dangerous mode.

Theory number 3. The impact of natural disasters

There were other opinions other than opinionspecialists version of what happened. For example, that the cause of the disaster was an earthquake. This version could also confirm that a local earthquake occurred after the accident. The basis is the assumption of a seismic shock, which was recorded in the vicinity of the nuclear power plant. However, employees of nuclear power plants, which were on the work of other reactors, did not feel anything at all.

Tip 2: Chernobl: how it was

The tragedy that occurred in the Chernobyl nuclear power plant killed people and forced residents of Pripyat to leave the city forever. The scale of the damage caused by this catastrophe still affects humanity.

The tragedy of the century

This happened on the night of April 26, 1986: an explosion occurred at the 4th power unit of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, which was located in the city of Pripyat. A terrible amount of radioactive substances escaped outside. In particularly dangerous places, the level of radiation contamination is thousands of times higher than the standard radiation background. Then even the inhabitants of a small town - Pripyat, could not even imagine what awaits them in the future. A team of firemen from 30 people immediately arrived at the scene. They bravely fought with a deadly flame, despite the fact that there was no special protective form - only masks and shoes. By morning the fire was extinguished. Unfortunately, this cost the lives of many workers of the ChNPP. After 37 hours after the destruction of the nuclear reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, a decision was made to evacuate and relocate the population. People were forced to leave their homes, take only documents, the most necessary things and food for a few days. During the next two weeks, radioactive substances were carried by the wind for many thousands of kilometers. Earth, water, vegetation within a radius of thirty kilometers became unsuitable for people's lives, as they posed a danger to health. After the most grandiose technogenic catastrophe, measures were taken to ensure that the danger did not spread. For several weeks, sand was poured onto the reactor and water was poured, but this was not enough. Near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant a huge ditch was excavated, where the remains of the reactor, fragments of concrete walls, clothes of the liquidators of the explosion were "buried". A month and a half later, a concrete "sarcophagus" was erected over the reactor, in order to prevent radiation from spreading.

Who is guilty

To this day, experts can not come to a singlepoint of view about the causes of the disaster. There is an opinion that the reason for the negligence of the designers and builders who built the nuclear power plant. Another point of view is that the whole fault is the failure of the reactor cooling. Someone believes that the cause of the explosion were the errors in the experiments on the permissible load carried out that night. Someone blames the Soviet authorities, because if the disaster had not been hidden for so long, the damage would have been much less. It is unanimous that the so-called "human factor" worked here. People made mistakes that cost a lot of health or life, a happy future, a healthy generation. The echoes of the catastrophe will be haunted by more than one generation of mankind throughout the world.

Tip 3: Chernobyl: Chronicles of the Catastrophe

On April 26, 1986, at the Chernobyl nuclear power plantthe fourth power unit exploded, which led to the release of a huge amount of radioactive substances into the atmosphere. The Chernobyl disaster claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, and its reasons are still being debated. The events of that fateful night were recovered literally in seconds.

Instructions

On April 25, 1986 the fourth block of the ChernobylThe nuclear power plant was to be forcibly stopped due to planned preventive maintenance. Specialists among other procedures were to produce the so-called "run-out of the rotor of a turbogenerator", which was part of an additional power supply system in case of emergency situations. This regime was not worked out, tests were conducted only for the fourth time.

April 25 to around 3:37 reactor power was reduced by 50 percent. The emergency cooling system was shut down. The dispatcher Kievenergo forbade to reduce capacity, however at 23:10 the ban was lifted. The reactor power was reduced to 700 MW thermal, and then to 500 MW.

April 26 at 0:28 the transition to an automatic controller of the total power was made. The operator could not cope with the control, the reactor power was reduced to critical values. It was decided to remove the absorbing rods of the reactor and restore its power. The inclusion of additional circulating pumps has led to an increase in the load of the turbine generator, a reduction in vapor generation. At low power, the temperature of the coolant approached the boiling point.

At 1:23:39 on the operator panel button, an emergency warning light has lighted up. The absorbing rods moved, but for a number of reasons the reactor was not muffled. After a few seconds, several alarms appeared, and then the systems sending them refused to work.

Most accident witnesses state thatthere were two explosions of high power. According to some evidence, there were more explosions. By 1:23:50 the fourth reactor of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was completely destroyed.

During the explosion, only one worker was killedpower plants. Another was seriously injured and died in the morning. Within half a year 28 of the 134 employees of the Chernobyl NPP and members of the rescue teams who died after the explosion developed radiation sickness.

April 26 at 1:24 on duty of the paramilitary fire department №2 received a fire signal in the fourth reactor of the Chernobyl NPP. At about 4:00 am the fire fighters managed to prevent the spread of fire and localize it on the roof of the engine room, and by 6:00 to extinguish it completely. The fact that near the reactor a giant level of radiation, it became known only by 3:30. 69 firefighters worked without special means of protection. They were only helmets, gloves and boevki (canvas robes).

Several firefighters felt ill alreadytwo o'clock in the morning. Physicians recorded vomiting, weakness and the so-called nuclear tan. The victims were provided with emergency assistance. On April 27, 28 firefighters were sent to Moscow for treatment at Radiological Hospital No. 6.

35 hours after the accident, the radio on Pripyat received information about the temporary evacuation of residents of the city. The country learned about the disaster just on April 28 at 21:00 from the TASS news release.