![]() It was a risky experiment to see whether the cooling system could still function using power generated from the reactor alone in the event of a failure in the auxiliary electricity supply. In the early hours of April 26, 1986, in the model Soviet town of Prypyat, a satellite of the much bigger Chernobyl, workers at a nuclear power plant demobilised the safety systems on the number four reactor, which had come on line only three years previously. “This is a priceless experience for other countries.” EXPERIMENT GONE WRONG “We were not ready for it - neither technologically nor financially,” Holosha told reporters in Kiev last month. ![]() “When it blew, it blew everything straight out into the atmosphere,” said Murray Jennex of San Diego State University.ĭespite those differences, though, the Chernobyl experience still contains lessons for Japan and other countries, says Volodymyr Holosha, the top Ukrainian Emergency Ministry official in charge of the area surrounding the Chernobyl plant. Most importantly, thick containment walls at the Fukushima Daini plant shield the reactor cores so that even if there was a meltdown of the nuclear fuel it’s unlikely to lead to a major escape of dangerous radioactive clouds into the atmosphere.Īt Chernobyl, there was no containment structure. The authorities embarked on an attempted cover-up and only partly admitted the truth three days later, denying themselves the chance of rapid international aid.ĭespite criticisms that Tokyo could be a lot more transparent, Japan’s disaster has taken place in a relatively open society and international help has been quick to come. The Chernobyl accident was the product of human error when a test was poorly executed, while the Japanese failure was triggered by an earthquake and tsunami.Ĭhernobyl occurred in a secretive Soviet society which reformer Mikhail Gorbachev was only just opening up. There are, of course, crucial differences between Chernobyl and the disaster unfolding in Japan. Those exposed to radiation were also “3-4 times more likely to report multiple unexplained physical symptoms and subjective poor health than were unaffected control groups.” Repeated studies have found that “exposed populations had anxiety levels that were twice as high” as people unaffected by the accident, according to a 2006 United Nations report. ![]() While debate about the health impact continues, there is little doubt people in Ukraine and neighbouring Belarus carry a psychological burden. Just as powerful are the scars that are less easily seen: fear and an abiding suspicion that despite the reassuring reports by authorities and scientific bodies people may still be dying from radiation after-effects. The physical and financial legacies of that disaster are obvious: a 30-km uninhabited ring around the Chernobyl plant, billions of dollars spent cleaning the region and a major new effort to drum up 600 million euros ($840 million) in fresh funds that Kiev says is needed to build a more durable casement over the stricken reactor. It was awful.”Īs Japan battles to prevent a meltdown at its earthquake-hit Fukushima Daini nuclear plant, the people of Ukraine are preparing to mark the 25th anniversary of the world’s worst nuclear accident. That was for me the first confirmation that the reactor had collapsed,” she said this week, seated at her desk in her central Kiev office. “He told me there had been a fire at the atomic plant in Chernobyl. We had even hung blankets on the windows to stop radiation because we didn’t know what to do,” said Natalya, a 46-year-old financial analyst in Kiev, whose husband was a journalist on a daily newspaper. There had been rumours for days about a nuclear accident. ![]() A general view of the sarcophagus covering the damaged fourth reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant February 24, 2011.
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