The Chernobyl nuclear incident remains one of the worst unintentional nuclear disasters to ever occur. It is important to understand what happened at Chernobyl, before, during, and after the incident, in order to avoid a similar incident occurring in the future. Understanding the after effects is also important for seeing how a nuclear disaster can impact an area that is not heavily populated by humans, because some of the results of the results have been surprisingly positive for the flora and fauna in the Chernobyl area.
Chernobyl was a nuclear power plant in Russia. Like all power plants, it had a cooling system designed to keep its nuclear reactors from melting down. It had backup generators in case of system failure, but there was a lag time for the backup generators to become operational. This lag time was seen as a design flaw but was not corrected. They planned a safety test of the system, which was supposed to occur when the reactor was shut down. The test was delayed, and a shift change occurred, resulting in the reactor running without a necessary part of its safety system in place.
When the test finally occurred, there was a power spike that caused the core to overheat. This led to an initial explosion, which triggered later explosions. The explosions led to a fire. Because the roof had been constructed with a flammable material, the fire spread quickly and was difficult to contain. Firefighters responded believing that they were fighting an electrical fire, not understanding that the reactor had exploded. There was a delay in evacuating nearby areas, which resulted in many people being exposed to radiation, but eventually the area around Chernobyl was evacuated and the Soviet Union acknowledged the accident.
The long-term impact of the accident was that…