CHERNOBYL DISASTER
Prepared by
Aakash S R
ME Environmental Engineering
Isemester
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What is Chernobyl Disaster?
It is a nuclear accident, that occurred on 26 April 1986 at the No. 4 reactor in
the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, near the city of Pripyat in the north of the
Soviet Ukraine in the Soviet Union.
“The Chernobyl disaster caused irreversible damage to the environment that
will last for thousands of years,” says Greenpeace in their 2016 study of the
accident.
In Chernobyl scientists have estimated that the zone around the former plant
will not be habitable for up to 3,000 years.
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Chernobyl Location:
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Nuclear Disaster:
●Nuclear power technology produces materials that are active in emitting
radiation and are therefore called “radioactive”.
●We all are exposed daily to a little radiation but too much or in mass
quantities can destroy our cells, cause organs to disfunction or after long and
continuous exposure cause cancer.
●When this nominal amount of radiation emission exceeds from a nuclear
setup because of any mishappening is known as a nuclear disaster.
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Chernobyl nuclear plant:
●It is a RBMK model nuclear reactor, a class of graphite-moderated nuclear
power reactor designed and built by the Soviet Union.
It consisted of four RBMK-1000 reactors, each capable of producing 1,000
●
megawatts (MW) of electric power.
Reactors No. 3 and 4 were second-generation units, whereas No. 1 and 2
●
were first-generation units.
●The four together produced about 10% of Ukraine's electricity on that time.
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Cause of accident:
●On April 25, 1986, routine maintenance was scheduled at the fourth reactor,
and workers planned to use the downtime to test whether the reactor could
still be cooled if the plant lost power.
●During the test, however, workers violated safety protocols and power
surged inside the plant.
●Despite attempts to shut down the reactor entirely, another power surge
caused a chain reaction of explosions inside. Finally, the nuclear core itself
was exposed, spewing radioactive material into the atmosphere.
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Aftermath of accident:
●The meltdown had spread radiation as far as Sweden, where officials at
another nuclear plant began to understand that something had gone wrong in
USSR.
●In the immediate aftermath of the accident, an area of about four square
miles became known as the “Red Forest” because so many trees turned
reddish-brown and died after absorbing high levels of radiation.
●At least 28 people initially died as a result of the accident, while more than
100 were injured.
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Present Condition:
●What remains of the reactor is now inside a massive steel containment
structure deployed in late 2016.
●Containment efforts and monitoring continues and cleanup is expected to
last until at least 2065.
●Up to 30 percent of Chernobyl’s 190 metric tons of uranium was now in the
atmosphere.
●Nearly 6,000 children and adolescents developed thyroid cancer after being
exposed to radiation from the incident.
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Disposing wastes:
Most of contaminations are dumbed below the ground within the thick
concretes structures.
It is scattered irregularly depending on weather conditions, much of it
deposited on mountainous regions such as the Alps, the Welsh mountain and
the Scottish Highland. Where adiabatic cooling caused radioactive rainfall.
In 2004 EER has developed a plasma-based, thermal-treatment technology for
treating and disposing of biohazard and radioactive waste, together with the
Russian Kurchatov Institute in Moscow.
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Environmental Impact:
More than 200,000 square kilometers to become contaminated with caesium-
137, with Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus effected.
There has been an increase in plant and animal mortality and gnetic effects
seen as well.
The Chernobyl environmental impact will still be experienced for decades to
come. Yet as every day passes, this region continues to heal, and that is a very
encouraging sign.
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Thank You
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