Just 120 kilometers away from the Ukrainian capital (Kiev), is one of the most terrifying areas on the planet. His name passed to posterity, since just over 30 years ago he was the scene and protagonist of the most serious nuclear disaster of all time. We are talking about Chernobyl .
Dedicated to a military program of the Soviet army, Chernobyl was consolidated as one of the largest and most important nuclear power plants of the 20th century worldwide. However, this was not enough to be able to stop the catastrophe that was to come.
The reasons were multiple. A series of unfortunate coincidences led to two large explosions that would lead to a fatal radioactivity leak. One of the experiments suffered a turbo-generator overheating and caused the blowout. There is talk of “coincidences” because, according to some experts, there was a failure of just two seconds in the process that starts the automatic security system , which should have stopped said excess temperature.
The first of the explosions released steam that destroyed the concrete roof of the reactor (approximately 1,200 tons). In less than 5 seconds, the second detonation was unleashed, caused by the entry of outside air into the reactor itself . The water vapor mixed with molten graphite and produced an explosion of similar magnitudes to that of 300 tons of trinitrotoluene explosive.
The other coincidence was the nuclear disaster, since the reactor, in theory, should have been closed before the experiment . However, this operation was postponed for nine hours due to the electricity needed to comply with the production plan. Faced with this, another group of workers (from different shifts) had to take over the experiment, and unfortunately, these operators were less qualified to conduct it than the original team. Chance after chance.
The subsequent investigation concluded that the personnel had not adequately followed the protection rules. The nuclear accident had a great impact on safety parameters , it marked a before and after not only with regard to nuclear power plants in other countries, but also on the actions and responsibility of all human activity.
According to the International Nuclear Accident Scale, the Chernobyl disaster has been, to date, the most devastating in the world. In this gallery, we reveal more details about this terrible event.
