Cause and Effect of Chernobyl

Omar Alhussaini

                                     Causes and Effects of Chernobyl

  Chernobyl accident is one of the worst nuclear power accidents in the world.This
disaster occurred on April 1986.The power plant was located northwest of Kiev in Ukraine.This plant was made up of four graphite reactors.And each one of them consisted of fuel rods which contains radioactive fuel.After the nuclear power plant had exploded,radioactive contamination was spread all over the place.Furthermore,clouds of radioactive steam shoot into the sky and fire was all around sending radioactive smoke and particle's into the atmosphere.This accident effected not only the people but also the environment in many different ways.And some people are still suffering from this explosion.This catastrophic incident started concerning other people who live nearby nuclear power plants.

    Recent research proves that human error is what basically caused this disaster.The operators were not used to working on the specific kind of nuclear reactor,so they didn’t have enough experience.They were trying to do a test on the nuclear plant.But before they started,one of the operators disabled the automatic emergency shutdown because a shutdown would abort the experiment and it would take a long time to restart the reactor.During the test,the reactor cooled down and exposed to shut down.They avoided the situation by removing most of the control rods.This caused for the reactor to overheat.Soon,the fuel rods started to melt.And because there was no confinement shell around the reactor,radioactive material shot into the sky.Because of that the explosion occurred.

   This human mistake caused tremendous problems.Some of them where able to be fixed and some where not.But this tragedy mainly effected the people and the environment.

    As I said before,people where effected by the accident.In fact,thirty people died,and around two hundred people were hospitalized.Furthermore,people living near the nuclear plant had to move.The whole city was evacuated.Studies have also shown that over one million people in Ukraine and neighboring countries have been affected by the radiation.Even many animals and plants decreased reproduction after the incident.Ten years after the accident,babies are still being born without an eye or leg.It is estimated that ultimately the accident will claim more victims than world war two.And it will coast around 60 Billion dollars to make these people healthy.

   In addition to the effectiveness to the people from the accident,the environment also faced some serious damage.The 10 days following the explosion,the damage of Chernobyl’s reactor continued to release major quantities of radioactive substances.The clouds where full of radioactive substance.And the damage was even worse in the places that it rain on.Because all the water coming from the clouds was contaminated.So when it rains rivers and lakes got also contaminated.So if the lakes and rivers get contaminated,all the plants growing next to them well also get contaminated.People and animals used to drink and eat from these water and trees.Three countries got affected from this accident:Belarus, Russia and Ukraine.

    In conclusion,Chernobyl's accident affected the people in several ways.It all happened just because of a simple human mistake.Managers should carefully follow the operators while they are working.And if any of the operators did not abide by the safety regulation,he should be fired.Because not only his life is in danger but thousands of innocent people too.People are still suffering from this tragedy.Even water and plants are still contaminated.If you want your children and grandchildren to be born in a healthy condition,try you best to live as far as you can from any nuclear power plant.Because you will never know when an explosion will occur.This is strictly recommended by scientist for our safety.