Chernobyl disaster

Perez, Millicent Mae

Rafiei, Negar
Rastegari, Keivon
Ricardo, Michaela
Salting, Lloyd Vincent
Templo, Kate-lynn
 Chernobyl disaster
™The Chernobyl disaster, or simply
Chernobyl, was a nuclear reactor
accident in the Chernobyl Nuclear
Power Plant in the Soviet Union.
™The worst nuclear power plant
accident in history.
™Resulting in a severe release of
radioactivity into the environment
following a massive power excursion
which destroyed the reactor.
 Chernobyl disaster
©26 April 1986 at 01:23:44 am,
reactor number four at the Chernobyl
plant, near Pripyat in the Ukrainian
SSR, exploded.
©Further explosions and the resulting
fire sent a plume of highly
radioactive fallout into the
atmosphere and over an extensive
geographical area.
 Chernobyl disaster
®The plume drifted over extensive
parts of the western Soviet Union,
Eastern Europe, Western Europe,
Northern Europe, and eastern North
America. Large areas in Ukraine,
Belarus, and Russia were badly
contaminated, resulting in the
evacuation and resettlement of over
336,000 people.
®About 60% off the radioactive fallout
landed in Belarus.
Evacuation of Pripyat
 HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE
ÖValeri Legasov compared the
Chernobyl to the eruption of Mount
Vesuvius which buried Pompei in AD
79.
ÖThe hot ashes from Vesuvius
completely covered Pompei.
ÖThe radioactive debris of the
Chernobyl reactor covered an area
more than 5,000 km with nearly 20
million Curies of radionuclides,
making human life impossible.
 Nuclear power plant
Ü The Chernobyl station is located near the
town of Pripyat, Ukraine, 18 km northwest
of the city of Chernobyl, 16 km from the
border of Ukraine and Belarus, and about
110 km north of Kiev.
Ü The station consisted of four reactors of
type RBMK-1000, each capable of
producing 1 gigawatt (GW) of electric
power, and the four together produced
about 10% of Ukraine's electricity at the
time of the accident
Location of the Chernobyl Nuclear
Power Plant
 The accident
ő On April 26, 1986 at 1:23:44 a.m., reactor
4 suffered a massive, catastrophic power
excursion.
ő Resulting in a steam explosion, which tore
the top from the reactor, exposed the core
and dispersed large amounts of
radioactive particulate and gaseous
debris, allowing air to contact the super-
hot core containing 1,700 tonnes of
combustible graphite moderator.
ő The burning graphite moderator increased
the emission of radioactive particles.
 The accident
¤ Although much of the nuclear fuel in
the reactor core did ultimately melt,
it should be noted that the disaster
was not a “nuclear meltdown“.
¤ the fuel melting was not a significant
contribution to the radiological
consequences of the accident.
¤ the accident was not caused by a
loss of coolant.
 Chernobyl after the disaster. Reactor 4 (center).
Turbine building ( lower left). Reactor 3 (center right)
 Test of the safety device
ö daytime of April 25, 1986, reactor 4 was
scheduled to be shut down for
maintenance as it was near the end of its
first fuel cycle.
ö An experiment was proposed to test a
safety emergency core cooling feature
during the shut down procedure.
ö the experiment, the reactor would be set
at a low power setting and the steam
turbine run up to full speed, at which point
the steam supply would be closed off and
the turbines allowed freewheeling and the
results recorded.
 Prior to the accident
∞Daytime of April 25, the reactor's
electricity output had been gradually
reduced to 50%.
∞The reduction output was postponed
because a regional power station
went offline.
∞11:04 p.m., April 25, the reactor
shut-down resume.
∞According to the plan, the test should
have been finalized during the day-
 Prior to the accident
ÿ Alexander Akimov was chief of the
night shift.
ÿ Leonid Toptunov was the operator
responsible for the reactors
operational regime, including the
movement of the control rods.
ÿ The night shift was not prepared to
carry out the experiment.
 Prior to the accident
The test plan called for the power
output of reactor 4 to be reduced
from its nominal 3.2 GW thermal to
0.7–1.0 GW thermal.
Toptunov committed an error and
inserted the control rods too far,
causing the reactor power dropped
to 30 MW thermal.
This low power output a phenomenon
called xenon poisoning becomes
 Prior to the accident
At this low power output it was
impossible to carry out the test.
To increase power, control rods were
pulled out of the reactor core,
beyond the correct position for
normal operations, and also beyond
what is allowed under safety
regulations.
Slowly, the reactor's power only
increased to 200 MW. Yet the
 Prior to the accident
 1:05 a.m. on April 26 extra water
pumps were started increasing the
water flow.
 The flow exceeded the safe limit at
1:19 a.m.
 The extra water lowered the core
temperature and reduced steam
voids.
 since water also absorbs neutrons,
this decreased reactor power further.
 This prompted the operators to
 Prior to the accident
The increased water flow led to a fall
in steam production and other
changes in the operating
parameters.
At this point the automatic control
system should have shut the reactor
down.
To avoid this, the operators had
disabled the shut down system.
 Fatal experiment
1:23:04 a.m. the experiment began.
The extremely unstable condition of
the reactor was not known to the
reactor crew.
With reactor output rapidly
increasing, the operators pressed the
AZ-5 panic button at 1:23:40, that
ordered SCRAM.
The SCRAM was ordered as a
response to the unexpected rapid
 Fatal experiment
the SCRAM actually increased the
reaction rate.
At this point a massive energy spike
occurred.
The core overheated and some of
the fuel rods fracture, blocking the
control rod columns.
Within three seconds the reactor
output rose above 530 MW.
 Fatal experiment
♣ By 1:23:47 the reactor jumped to
around 30 GW thermal, ten times the
normal operational output.
♣ The rapid increase in steam pressure
destroyed fuel channels and ruptured
the large diameter cooling water
pipes.
♣ Fuel rods began to melt and reached
the cooling water in the flooded
basement.
 Fatal experiment
♦ At 1:24, the first powerful steam
explosion took place.
♦ It damaged the top of the reactor hall
and ejected fragments of material.
♦ The 2,000 tonne lid was blown off the
reactor.
♦ A second more powerful explosion
occurred about two or three seconds
after the first.
 Fatal experiment
♥ According to Medvedev Z.
The second explosion was caused by
the hydrogen which had been
produced either by the overheated
steam-zirconium reaction or by the
reaction of red-hot graphite with
steam that produce hydrogen and
oxygen.
 Aerial view of the damaged core.
Roof of the turbine hall is damaged (center)
 Lumps of graphite moderator ejected from the core.
The largest lump shows an intact control rod channel.
 Radiation levels
♠ The radiation levels in the worst-hit
areas of the reactor building have
been estimated to be 5.6 röntgen per
second (R/s), which is equivalent to
20,000 röntgen per hour (R/h).
♠ A lethal dose is around 500 röntgen
over 5 hours, in some areas,
unprotected workers received fatal
doses within several minutes.
 Fire containment
Shortly after the accident,
firefighters arrived to try to
extinguish the fires.
The first one to the scene was a
Chernobyl Power Station firefighter
brigade under the command of
Lieutenant Vladimir Pravik, who died
on May 9, 1986 of acute radiation
sickness.
 Fire containment
The immediate priority was to
extinguish fires on the roof of the
station and the area around the
building containing Reactor No. 4 in
order to protect No. 3 and keep its
core cooling systems intact.
The fires were extinguished by
5 a.m., but many firefighters
received high doses of radiation.
 Fire containment
The fire inside Reactor No. 4
continued to burn until 10 May 1986.
The fire was extinguished by a
combined effort of helicopters
dropping over 5,000 tonnes of
materials like sand, lead, clay and
boron onto the burning reactor and
injection of liquid nitrogen.
 Evacuation of Pripyat
The government committee formed
to investigate the accident, led by
Valeri Legasov, arrived at Chernobyl
in the evening of April 26.
By that time two people were dead
and 52 were hospitalized.
the committee, faced with ample
evidence of extremely high levels of
radiation and a number of cases of
radiation exposure.
 Possible causes of the
disaster
☻two official theories about the main
cause of the accident.
☻1st: ‘flawed operators theory‘
' design theory’
☻2nd: ‘flawed
 ‘flawed operators theory‘
✮effectively placed the blame solely
on the power plant operators.
✮ The operators violated plant
procedures and were ignorant of the
safety requirements needed by the
RBMK design.
✮This was partly due to their lack of
knowledge of the reactor's design as
well as lack of experience and
training.
✮Several procedural irregularities also
 ‘flawed design theory’
✐attributing the accident to flaws in
the RBMK reactor design, specifically
the control rods.
✐The reactor had a dangerously large
positive void coefficient.
✐ A more significant flaw was in the
design of the control rods that are
inserted into the reactor to slow
down the reaction.
 ‘flawed design theory’
the control rod end tips were made
of graphite and the extenders were
hollow and filled with water.
while the rest of the rod was made
of boron carbide.
when the rods are initially inserted
into the reactor, the graphite ends
displace some coolant.
greatly increases the rate of the
fission reaction.
The effects of the disaster
The nuclear meltdown provoked a
radioactive cloud that floated not
over just the modern states of
Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and
Moldova, but also Turkish Thrace,
Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia, Bulgaria,
Greece, Romania, Lithuania, Estonia,
Latvia, Finland, Denmark, Norway,
Sweden, Austria, Hungary, the Czech
Republic and the Slovak Republic,
The Netherlands, Belgium, Slovenia,
Poland, Switzerland, Germany, Italy,
Ireland, Franc (including Corsica) the
 The effects of the disaster
☢Contamination from the Chernobyl
accident was scattered irregularly
depending on weather conditions.
☢Studies in countries around the area
say that over one million people
could have been affected by
radiation.
 Radioactive release
♛The Chernobyl release was controlled
by the physical and chemical
properties of the radioactive
elements in its core.
♛Particularly dangerous are highly
radioactive compounds that
accumulate in the food chain, such
as some isotopes of iodine and
strontium.
♛At different times after the accident,
different isotopes were responsible
 Health of plant workers
♚237 people suffered from acute
radiation sickness, of whom 31 died
within the first three months.
♚135,000 people were evacuated from
the area, including 50,000 from
Pripyat.
Residual radioactivity in the
environment
♨Rivers, lakes and reservoirs
♨The radioactive contamination of
aquatic systems therefore became a
major issue in the immediate
aftermath of the accident.
♨In the most affected areas of
Ukraine, levels of radioactivity in
drinking water caused concern
during the weeks and months after
the accident.
♨After this initial period however,
radioactivity in rivers and reservoirs
Residual radioactivity in the
environment
❀Groundwater
❀Groundwater was not badly affected
by the Chernobyl accident since
radionuclides with short half-lives
decayed away a long time before
they could affect groundwater
supplies.
Residual radioactivity in the
environment
ϋ Flora and Fauna
ϋ After the disaster, four km² of pine
forest in the immediate vicinity of the
reactor turned ginger brown and
died, earning the name of the "Red
Forest".
ϋ Some animals in the worst-hit areas
also died or stopped reproducing.
ϋ Most domestic animals were
evacuated from the exclusion zone,
 Chernobyl Today
ö The Chernobyl reactor is now
enclosed in a large concrete shelter
which was built quickly to allow
continuing operation of the other
reactors at the plant.
ö However, the structure is not strong
or durable.
ö A New Safe Confinement structure
will be built by the end of 2011.
The Sarcophagus, the concrete block
surrounding reactor #4
 Assessing the disaster's
effects on human health
UNSCEAR states:
“Among the residents of Belarus, the
Russian Federation and Ukraine
there had been, up to 2002, about
4,000 cases of thyroid cancer
reported in children and adolescents
who were exposed at the time of the
accident, and more cases are be
expected during the next decades.
Apart from this increase, there is no
evidence of a major public health
 Comparison with other
disasters
 The Chernobyl disaster caused a few
dozen immediate deaths due to radiation
poisoning
 a few thousand premature deaths are
predicted over the coming decades.
 Since it is often not possible to prove the
origin of the cancer which causes a
person's death
 it is difficult to estimate Chernobyl's long-
term death toll, which is still a hotly-
debated issue
 Comparison with other
disasters
The failure of the Banqiao Dam (Henan,
China, 1975) - where an estimated 26,000
people died from flooding and another
145,000 died during subsequent epidemics
and famine.
The Bhopal disaster (India, 1984) - the BBC
gives the death toll as nearly 3,000 people
dead initially, and at least another 15,000
have died from subsequent illnesses.
The Great Smog (London, United Kingdom,
1952) -where medical services compiled
statistics and found that the fog had killed
4,000 people initially, and another 8,000 died
in the weeks and months that followed.
The MV Doña Paz disaster, (Philippines, 1987)
- this petroleum products fire at sea killed
Chernobyl after the disaster
Chernobyl after the disaster
The end!