Abstract

On the night of 25th April, 1986 when most of the inhabitants of Chernobyl and Pripyat were asleep, an experiment was taking place at the Reactor 4 of Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. By the mid-night the fire fighters received emergency call to reach the spot of Chernobyl Reactor 4 as soon as possible. Even before they could understand what’s going on, some of them collapsed on the spot of the supposedly accident which took place at Reactor 4 from a “mere fire”, their skins were burnt and they were rushed to the hospitals. Around 28 of them died within the coming 10 days followed by the accident. It was only after almost 24 hours of the entire occurrence that people came to know the mere fire was nothing but the dangerous substance, graphite. Evacuation started taking place and soon the entire city of Pripyat became evacuated which is till today’s time not occupied by many residents and most of the parts of it still being considered as contamination zone. The entire accident is known to us as the Chernobyl disaster of 1986 in the Soviet Union, which is, the worst disaster in the history of nuclear power generation till date. Due to shutting down the reactor’s power-regulating system and its emergency safety systems while allowing the reactor to continue running at just 7% power the chain reaction in the core went completely out of control. Several explosions triggered a large fire exploding the heavy lid of the reactor leading to a huge amount of environmental impact extending beyond border. This paper deals with the entire accident, the causes and the effects on the environment, the paper also comes up with certain suggestions in order to avoid any such future accidents.

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