Causes Behind the Chernobyl Accident in 1986

On April 25, 1986, a series of events in Chernobyl led to one of the worst nuclear disasters in history. On the night of April 25, workers were monitoring the nuclear reactor when they saw that it was not generating enough power. The workers tried solving this by removing the control rods, items that lowered the output of the reactor to keep it under control. However, the output did not increase, confusing the scientists working at the reactor. An hour later, the output suddenly spiked, causing it to break the safety limit. One of the workers hit the SCRAM button, dropping all the control rods to stop the nuclear reactor, but it was a big mistake. As it turned out, the control rods that were supposed to be lowering the output actually had tips that increased the output of the reactor. The actual rods themselves were made out of boron, which reduced the output, but the tips were made out of graphite, which actually increased the output of the reactor. When the scientist dropped all the control rods in the reactor at the same time, it caused a massive spike in the output, which was way past the safety limit. The output of the reactor was now ten times the amount it should be, and the energy created by the reactor was so huge that the reactor had now become a bomb, ready to go off at any moment.

Boom! The pressure within the reactor built up and caused the lid of the reactor, weighing about 10,000 tons (2,000 elephants), to fly up into the air. Soon after this first explosion, another followed, caused by the substances within the reactor, spilling radioactive material everywhere. The entire reactor exploded, yet the scientist at the site did not know that, as the thought of the reactor exploding just did not seem possible to them. No one knew what was going on within the reactor, resulting in further damage being spread to the nearby town and the entire world. In the end, there was a total number of 30 deaths and hundreds of thousands of casualties due to the radiation, which greatly increased the rate of cancer.

The Chernobyl accident mainly occurred due to two reasons: design and human error. The control rods were poorly designed, and the scientists were not informed of the tip causing a spike instead of lowering the output. Human error was also present, as the instructions for what to do were very poorly written, and the scientists were not properly trained to deal with emergencies. These two factors, combined with other smaller causes, resulted in the tragedy of the Chernobyl accident, the worst nuclear accident in history.

References

“Chernobyl Accident.” World Nuclear Association,

world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-security/safety-of-plant

s/chernobyl-accident.aspx. Accessed 26 Mar. 2023.