INDUSTRIAL DISASTERS –
CRISIS MANAGEMENT FEATURE
CAN THEY BE PREVENTED ? 35 years ago this month, the Chernobyl disaster took place. A few miles from Chernobyl, a town in Ukraine near the borders with Russia and Belarus, a nuclear power site was developed that was intended to have six reactors when completed. In 1986, four reactors had
been completed and the last 2 were under construction. In the early morning hours of April 26, 1986 during maintenance checks and testing on reactor #4, it exploded creating what has been described as the worst nuclear disaster the world has ever seen. Unlike most nuclear reactors, where water is used as a coolant to moderate the reactivity of the nuclear core, the reactor in Chernobyl used graphite to moderate the core’s reactivity and to keep a continuous nuclear reaction occurring in the core. When extremely hot nuclear fuel rods were lowered into cooling water, an immense amount of steam was created, which, because of design flaws in the reactor created more, rather than the intended less reactivity in the nuclear core of the reactor. The resultant power surge caused an immense explosion that detached the 1,000-ton plate covering the reactor core, causing
32
