Chernobyl Disaster: 40 Years Later How the night explosion divided the history of nuclear energy into “before” and “after” — causes, chronicle, heroes, and what is happening in the exclusion zone today. On April 26, 1986, at 01:23 Moscow time, an explosion occurred at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant named after V.I. Lenin, which forever changed the world. The fourth power unit of the station was completely destroyed, and an enormous amount of radioactive substances — about 38 million curies — was released into the atmosphere. This disaster became the largest technological accident in human history, affecting the lives of millions of people. “The Chernobyl disaster is an event that divided the history of nuclear energy into ‘before’ and ‘after’. It is a story about human error, incredible heroism, and long-term consequences that we are still trying to understand.” Causes of the Tragedy: What Went Wrong On the night of April 26, tests of a turbine generator were being conducted on the fourth power unit. The experiment program was insufficiently worked out, and the personnel did not have a full understanding of the physical processes in the reactor. Due to gross violations of instructions and the unsuccessful design of emergency control systems, an uncontrolled increase in power occurred. Two explosions (steam and, presumably, hydrogen) destroyed the reactor unit and the building. The main cause of the accident is attributed to a combination of human error and design flaws: the RBMK-1000 reactor had positive reactivity — under certain conditions (such as the introduction of a void coefficient), power did not decrease, but catastrophically increased. Despite preliminary signals from the emergency protection system, the personnel continued the experiment, leading to a thermal explosion. Errors in design and violations of operational rules became a fatal cocktail that destroyed the reactor. ~14 EBktotal release 600,0 ... Read more