Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster

Chernobyl was a deadly nuclear disaster that occurred 30 years ago, in 1986, in Pripyat, Ukraine. The incident killed 31 people instantly, and deemed the town inhabitable, as the abandoned plant is still releasing radiation. 

 

At the time of the disaster, there was no containment building to trap the radiation, which rained down on large regions of Belarus, the U.K, the United States, Eastern Europe, and Scandinavia. The plant is now covered by a 'sarcophagus' dome, made of concrete and steel. 

350,000 people were evacuated, and moved to places where they could live after the incident. 

There are two official causes for the incident.

The first cause, was blamed on the power plant operators at the time, as the event occurred during a late night safety test. The test included a simulated blackout power-failure, and cooling, auto-control, and power reduction safety systems were deliberately turned off to do so. 

"The developers of the reactor plant considered this combination of events to be impossible and therefore did not allow for the creation of emergency protection systems capable of preventing the combination of events that led to the crisis, namely the intentional disabling of emergency protection equipment plus the violation of operating procedures. Thus the primary cause of the accident was the extremely improbable combination of rule infringement plus the operational routine allowed by the power station staff."

The second cause blamed deficiencies in operating instructions and design. There were previous reports of structural flaws of the plant, caused by negligence during the power plant's construction - such as split concrete layers - which were never acted upon.