![]() ![]() On April 27, Soviet authorities began an evacuation of the 30,000 inhabitants of Pripyat. In the explosion and ensuing fire, more than 50 tons of radioactive material were released into the atmosphere, where it was carried by air currents. It was not a nuclear explosion, as nuclear power plants are incapable of producing such a reaction, but was chemical, driven by the ignition of gases and steam that were generated by the runaway reaction. So, before the control rod’s five meters of absorbent material could penetrate the core, 200 graphite tips simultaneously entered, thus facilitating the reaction and causing an explosion that blew off the heavy steel and concrete lid of the reactor. The control rods were meant to reduce the reaction but had a design flaw: graphite tips. To prevent meltdown, the operators reinserted all the 200-some control rods into the reactor at once. In fact, it did not adequately power the water pumps, and without cooling water the power level in the reactor surged. on April 26, the engineers continued with their experiment and shut down the turbine generator to see if its inertial spinning would power the reactor’s water pumps. The reactor’s output rose to more than 200 megawatts but was proving increasingly difficult to control. Next, they compounded this recklessness with a series of mistakes: They ran the reactor at a power level so low that the reaction became unstable, and then removed too many of the reactor’s control rods in an attempt to power it up again. As part of their poorly designed experiment, the engineers disconnected the reactor’s emergency safety systems and its power-regulating system. ![]()
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