Chernobyl : Worst Nuclear Accident in History
On 26th of April 1986 an event took place that is regarded as the most disastrous nuclear power plant accident in history, both in terms of cost and casualties. It is one of only two nuclear energy accidents classified as a level 7 event (the maximum classification) on the International Nuclear Event Scale, the other being the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan in 2011.It officially killed 31 people and left unknown number of people affected for the rest of their lives. This is a short documentary on the Chernobyl nuclear disaster which caused 19 miles radius safely uninhabitable for humans for another 20,000 years. So grab your headphones, sit back and let’s get right into it.

On March 1970 Construction of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant located near the city of Chernobyl, Pripyat in Northern Ukraine begins. In 1977, the first of the Nuclear Power Plants four reactors is ready to operate followed by number 2 in 1978. In 1982, a partial core meltdown occurs in reactor number 1 but the extent of the accident was not made public until 1985 and the reactor was then repaired and put back into operation within months. By 1983, 4 nuclear reactors are built and the plant becomes operational and was powering nearly 10% of Ukraine’s electricity. Now fast forward to the early hours of 26th of April 1986, 16 years after the plants Commission. Workers at the nuclear plant are carrying a test in nuclear reactor number 4. There are many inaccuracies and faults and the test violated regulations and this combined with the flaw design in the reactor, caused a sudden power Surge and an emergency shutdown was implemented, but this failed and workers could feel that something bad was coming and seconds later an immense explosion detached the 1,000-ton plate covering the reactor core, releasing radiation into the atmosphere.

A few seconds later, a second explosion of even greater power than the first blew the reactor building apart releasing deadly Radioactive vapour and spark of colourful bright fire up the sky. The alarms were activated and the first on the scene were the fire men. It is said that, they had no idea what they were dealing with, had they knew about the radiation and if they had followed regulation they would have never gone near the reactor but had no choice than to tackle the situation without any protective gear exposing themselves to deadly radiation. Despite their initial efforts the fire could not be brought under control. 2 man died that day, night shift main circulating pump operator, who is suspected to be killed immediately as his body was never discovered and the automatic system adjuster who was found unconscious in room 604, under a beem and was contaminated by Radioactive water. He was exposed to such high level of radiation that one of the power plant workers suffered radiation burn on his back where this man’s hand was located when he helped carrying him out.
The officials were slow to react, they were in fact in denial that any radiation was leaking out. Actually the radiation level was maxing out on their metres but the max out limit that these metres were capable of showing was nothing worth of evacuating the area. But of course in reality the level of radiation was beyond their meters and was astronomically high. In the nearby town of Pripyat the people were told that it was just a fire at the power plant, everything was under control and they have nothing to worry about, so life was normal, children went to school and residence went to work completely unaware of the invisible radiation they are being exposed to. The levels were 15000 times higher than usual and was continuously rising.

There is also a story that just after the explosion many locals gathered on a Railway Bridge to have a good view of the nuclear plant. And it is said that they witnessed bright colourful flames coming out from the reactor but they had no idea that were exposed to a lethal dose of radiation and apparently no one survived and the bridge is now referred to as the bridge of death. Now i indeed went deep into this story and found that, the bridge does exist and if people would have stood there for long enough then definitely they would have been exposed to deadly level of radiation. But this story is still not yet confirmed.
Reactor number 4 was still burning and both heat and radiation level were continuously increasing. So to control the situation Pilots were brought in to fly helicopters above the reactor, about 1800 helicopter flights deposited over 5,000 metric tons of sand, lead, clay, and neutron absorbing boron onto the burning reactor. The residents were now ordered to evacuate and an 18 mile area around The Power Plant was closed and the residents were given a 2 hour notice to gather their belongings. With the help of 1200 buses, the evacuation took nearly 3.5 hours. People were told that they will be returning in few days but this never happened. Around 43000 people who once called Pripyat their home now were first atomic refugees, the title that they never imagine being given. The only people left in the area was one old man who refused to evacuate and was found dead in his home just a few weeks later and the military and scientific delegates who were tasked with getting the still burning reactor under control.

They were living unprotected in local hotels seemingly unaware of the dangerous threat from the high level of radiation. Days after the explosion, clouds of radioactive matter was being blown north, drifting over Russia and reaching as far as Sweden. Despite radioactive dust raining on Stockholm there was no official reports outside the Soviet Union. It took nearly 3 days for rest of the world to know and this coincided with the report that US spy satellite had spotted the wreckage of the burning Chernobyl plant. By now the whole of Europe was at risk of contamination, the plant was still burning and something had to be done urgently to put out the fire and Seal reactor number 4 to prevent any more radiation from spilling out.
After constant effort the Flames were brought somewhat under control but the heat was still there which was causing the base of the reactor to crack. The workers knew that below the reactors was a water reservoir and also a basement that would have been filled with water from Firefighter’s water hoses. If the radioactive magma contacts with the pool of water underneath, then this would cause a massive steam explosion throwing out more radioactive material from the reactor into the air. Therefore it was absolutely necessary to drain this water out, by doing so another explosion could be prevented and the area below the ground then could be filled with liquid nitrogen to cool it.

3 plant workers volunteered for this mission. Among these 3 brave men, one knew where the valves were located and other two had the job to hold a submersible light. Their light failed almost immediately, and they were forced to proceed in complete darkness, often under highly radioactive water to find the valves. They opened the valves and returned back but sadly all died shortly after from the radiation something they knew would happen as a result of their heroic feet.
With the water drained out, the authorities called down the help of 10,000 miners — with the aim of tunnelling Underneath the reactor to cool down the base and stop it from melting through the ground by pumping in liquid nitrogen. But i found some conflicted reports about this operation and there are some doubts that weather this operation even completed or not. But eventually it seems that the liquid nitrogen was stopped and the area beneath the reactor was filled with concrete. Whatever may have happened but those 3 men prevented another explosion and if they hadn’t have done that,then the explosion would have been so catastrophic that would have put whole Europe’s existence at risk. With the situation some what under control and the threat of explosion eliminated and averted, the workers set out to wash the radioactive dust off the streets and to seal out the reactor to minimise the spread of radiation. A large concrete enclosure named the sarcophagus was built on the site. Access points were left in the sarcophagus for researchers.
During one such research trip, their equipment registered levels of radiation so high that it would kill anyone who got too close for more than a few second. In order to see what was causing the readings, the scientist attached a camera to a wheeled contraption and rolled it in the direction the readings were emanating. What they saw was dubbed the Elephant’s Foot.

The Elephant’s Foot is so deadly that spending only 30 seconds near it will result in dizziness and fatigue. Two minutes near it and your cells will begin to haemorrhage. By the time you hit the five-minute mark, you’re a goner.Even after 30 years, the foot is still melting through the concrete base of the power plant. Its existence makes the city uninhabitable to humans for at least the next 100 years. If it melts down into a source of ground water, it could contaminate the water of nearby villages or even trigger another explosion. But according to current situation, it is far likely to happen. The sarcophagus was completed by December 1986, 8 months after the disaster and it covered the whole reactor.

It is thought to be that nearly 800 thausand people risked their lives in 1986 in an attempt to contain and clean up the Chernobyl disaster site. Many of these brave people received medals for their work but sadly 28 people died because of acute radiation sickness in the weeks after initial explosion.
The Chernobyl disaster initially took life of 2 workers followed by 29 people later due to radiation related deaths and 4 men from an helicopter that crashed trying to contain the fire at the plant. Millions of people were affected by it’s long term effects but the exact figure is still unknown. Many people still bears effects of disaster and the memories are still very real to this day.
The exclusion zone now covers an area of 1000 miles around the power plant, although many live at this area at their own risk mainly workers who are currently building a New Safe Confinement over the sarcophagus for containing the radioactive remains of Reactor 4 for next 100 years.
The towns near Pripyat and many other area close to the reactor are just ghost towns, nobody ever returned to live there and haunted images show how life must have changed that day. But 1 surprising fact about the area surrounding Chernobyl is its ever growing wildlife. Initially it was thought that the disaster will have a devastating effect on local wildlife creating to form alien like radioactive creatures and many animals would disappear from the area around the power plant but recent studies have shown that deer, elk, wolves and wild boars seems relatively unaffected by the contaminated land.

Although some animals have showed deformities after the event and some population have decreased but its no-where near what was being predicted.
In total this accident costed Soviet Union nearly 200 billion pounds and drove millions from their homes making it the biggest and most disastrous nuclear power plant accident in history.

