Chernobyl catastrophe is regarded as one of the most gruesome nuclear catastrophes in the world. In April 1986, a nuclear explosion occurred at a nuclear powerplant in a city called "Chernobyl". The city is located in the former Soviet Union which is in Ukraine now. This explosion had an impact on 200,000sq/km of 13 countries in Europe. According to the expert's opinion, as a result of this disaster, the loss was about 30,000core USD. Experts also give an opinion that it requires 20,000 years to eradicate the effect of radioactivity in the area near the explosion.
After WWII, as a result of the nerve war, the USA and the Soviet Union stressed the importance of nuclear weapon research. As a consequence, the Soviet Union built its first nuclear reactor at Chernobyl which is located in the Ukraine-Belarus border in 1977. Periodically the build another three nuclear reactors in 1978, 1981, 1983. The capacity of power generation is 1MW/reactor. On April 25, 1986, the authority decided to examine the air-conditioning system of the 4th reactor. But, due to some inconsistency, the responsibility of this test is given to an inexperienced and unprepared engineer. To improve his status and for promotion, he decided to take this experiment in a hurry without enough preparation.
They broke off the power connection to the air-conditioning system. Due to some deficiency, the backup generator was not working. As a consequence, the temperature of the reactor was increasing. Because of the excessive hot temperature, a large amount of water was evaporated and expanded. This was the reason for the first explosion. It destroyed the roof of the reactor made of concrete and steel. After the second explosion, Uranium and other radioactive matters spread out into the air.
Initially, the government locked down the radius of 30km for the explosion center. 2634 square kilometers area was declared the explosion zone which is expanded to 4143 square kilometers. The reactor used 190 tons of radioactive matter. Among them, 30% was spread out into the air. The difference between the nuclear bomb and nuclear powerplant is, in a nuclear powerplant, the chain reaction is controlled while in a nuclear bomb, it's not. Due to the inactivity of the air-conditioning system, the chain reaction was out of control in the reactor. The amount of radioactivity was 400 times greater than the nuclear explosion in Hiroshima. The weather of that time also helped to spread out the radioactivity. On April 28, Sweden found radioactive matter into the air at one of their nuclear powerplant areas. It was 1100 kilometers far from the explosion center. Sweden first warned the world about this explosion and ask information to the Soviet Union. Finland also found the radioactive matter into the air. At last, the Soviet Union admit this.
The affected countries of this explosion were: Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Sweden, Bulgaria, Finland, Greece, Moldova, Austria, Switzerland, Norway, Hungary and Slovenia. Three peoples were dead at spot while 25 peoples were dead later for the effect of radioactivity. About 100 people are wounded. But the tragic event is, almost 6000 children were suffered from cancer because of this. The reactor was closed after the event. The other three reactors were closed periodically in 1991, 1996 and 2000.
A small city of 72,000 square feet was built for the workers of the powerplant at the Ukraine-Belarus border called "Pripyat". Several schools, parks, medical centers were built for the people of the city. The city was declared abandoned after the explosion. In 2011, Pripyat was opened for the tourist and radioactivity researcher.
Aristotle says, "Nature abhors a vacuum". In the absence of people, nature decorates this city in its way despite the presence of radioactivity.
