Igor Kudrik

The very word Chernobyl has become synonymous with catastrophe since the Ukraine based plant’s reactor No. 4 exploded in the early morning hours of April 26, 1986, spreading radioactive fall-out as far north as Scandinavia. Chernobyl ran on the water cooled graphite moderated RBMK type reactor that has since been deemed fatally flawed by experts. The accident began with an ill-planned experiment to suck extra energy out of the turbines after the reactor had been cooled. Operators where controlling the reactor manually. Water pressure in the reactor’s damp feeds built to an uncontrollable point and the operators pushed the emergency stop button. The damp feeds in the core exploded shortly thereafter, and the consequent heat build up blew the lid off of the reactor, spreading 3 million TBq of radiation―95,000 TBqs of which were of the long-lived elements like caesium, strontium and plutonium. Official death tolls are hard to reckon. Thirrty workers were killed immediately in the blast, but the radiation spread continues to claim countless victims.