Chernobyl

Chernobyl

The Chernobyl disaster on April 26, 1986 is described as one of the most frightening
environmental disasters in the world. The plant was made up of four graphite reactors,
which were the most modern Soviet reactors of the RBMK-type. "Two more of these
reactors were still under construction at the station." Chernobyl was an obscure town in
north central Ukraine (former Soviet Union) on the Pripyiat River near the Belarus border.
Immediately its name was joined to the Nuclear Power Plant located "twenty-five
kilometers upstream. The plant is actually located fifteen kilometers northwest of the city."
It is not only the radioactive mess left that strikes fear. Nineteen similar stations are still
running, because neither the former Soviet Union nor its republics can afford to shut them
down.
The world first learned of this accident from Sweden, where unusually high
radiation levels were noticed at one of their own nuclear facilities. "At 1:23 am" technici...