Chernobyl 20 years on

[Kapitan]

Just had a read of national geographic book talking about the chernobyl nuclear power plant for those who dont know.

20 years ago this month, The worlds worst nuclear disaster took place in the Ukrain in a town called chernobyl.
During routine saftey test reactor number 4 went critical over heated and melted down.
The affects of the disaster are still with us to this day.

Chernobyl is situated around 50 miles from Kiev in the Ukrain, during the 1980's it was the main plant for supplying power to the ukrain and part of russia, plans were drawn up for a fourth then 5th and 6th reactor, it would have ment if these plans went ahead that chernobyl would be the worlds largest and most powerfullest nuclear plant ever built.

In mind april 1986 at around 1am the suporvisior for the night shift conducted a saftey test dropping the power levels in the reactor, but then he made the mistake of raising the rods completly which caused the rod liners to warp and so the control rods couldnt drop.

The reactor heated up fast, water began turning into steam at an alarming rate, the temprature inside the reactor getting hotter and hotter ever second till finaly it blew the 2,000 tonne reactor line through the cealing (which is 23 feet above the floor).

Radioactive debris was found a mile away from the reactor, and it took 10 days to bring the now destroyed reactor under control.
Many men died just trying to shovel debris back into the reactor from the roof.
After this the soviet commisioned that a sarcophigus be built over the reactor and it was.

But now it threatens to collapse and fears are growing that the new one will not be built quick enough and so we are exposed once again to its leathl radiation.

Scientist's have said the area around chernobyl will be inhabitable around 2161 when radioative levels drop to acceptable levels.