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Mahesh

27/04/24 08:55 AM IST

The he Chernobyl disaster

In News
  • In the early hours of April 26, 1986, as the city of Chernobyl slept, Reactor 4 of its nuclear power plant exploded, causing arguably the worst nuclear disaster of all time.
About Disaster
  • Located roughly 16 km from the city of Chernobyl, and a little over 100 km away from Kyiv, the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant began operations in 1978, with four reactors operational by 1983.
  • Reactors 5 and 6 were supposed to enter service in the late 1980s, and at the time of the disaster a total of 12 reactors were eventually planned — which would make Chernobyl the most powerful nuclear power plant in the world.
  • At the time of the explosion, the four nuclear reactors produced roughly 10% of Ukraine’s power supply.
  • On April 26, 1986 a group of technicians carried out a botched safety test that led to a series of explosions in Reactor 4 and a partial meltdown of its core.
  • As oblivious residents of Chernobyl and nearby town of Pripyat watched the nightsky light up with an effervescent fire, clouds of radioactive material spewed into the atmosphere — enough to impact not just neighbouring Belarus and Russia (a part of the Soviet Union at the time), but also northern and eastern Europe.
  • To put the scale of the tragedy into perspective — the Chernobyl disaster is said to have released 400 times more radiation than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan by the United States.
  • Soviet officials initially tried to cover up the disaster, but as a spike of radiation was recorded in Sweden on April 28, over 1,000 km away, the Kremlin finally admitted to what had happened.
Source- Indian Express

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