As decisions were made and tests were conducted, no one could anticipate the catastrophic consequences that lay ahead. The unfolding events would soon grip the world's attention and reveal the true extent of the nuclear crisis...
I recommend reading part 1 of the article (link is below), if you want to know how this story start. Or if you just want to know the end, that's cool too :)
(https://hive.blog/hive-148441/@tinabrezpike/tales-of-the-past-chernobyl-s-tragic-legacy)
At 01:03, they tried to improve water flow by turning on backup pumps, but because the reactor's power was low, it made things worse. So, they turned them off quickly. With only four pumps working, the water started getting hotter and turned into steam, which wasn't good for cooling.
At 1:23:40, Alexander Akimov pressed the emergency button to shut down the reactor. But it was too late. At 1:23:53, there was a massive explosion. The reactor's cover blew off, releasing radiation into the air. A second explosion followed, spreading more radioactive material. A fire started inside the reactor, adding to the danger. Dust filled the air, and there was no electricity, just dim lights. The sky lit up with a blue glow, marking the start of a terrible disaster.
The accident aftermath was terrible. Firefighters came, but they didn't know what to do because they didn't have the right equipment and didn't know how much radiation was there. They tried to put out the fire but started feeling sick because they weren't protected.
The explosion broke the devices that measure radiation. There was graphite and reactor bits everywhere, but no one noticed because it was so chaotic. They brought a new radiation detector, but they thought it was broken and ignored it. The head of the reactor team thought everything was okay.
The radiation levels were extremely high, more than 20,000 roentgens per hour in some places. A deadly dose is around 500 roentgens over five hours, but some workers got fatal doses in just a few moments.
Sadly, within three weeks, most of the team, including Akimov, died from radiation.
At the hospital in Pripyat, over 100 people from the accident were brought in. The KGB stopped the phones from working to keep the news from spreading. People were told not to talk about it. Residents didn't know how bad it was, so they kept living like normal.
More than 24 hours after the accident, the committee realized that the reactor had been destroyed, as they had enough evidence of very high levels of radioactive radiation and many cases of radiation exposure. Finally, they ordered the evacuation of the nearby town of Pripyat. The residents were told that they would return home in three days, so they only took personal documents and some luggage with them. Pets were not allowed to be taken with them. A few days later, special forces started killing animals and pouring foaming disinfectant on the roads.
By the evening of April 27, everyone had left Pripyat for good. They were told they could return, but they never did. From 1986 to 2000, about 350,000 people were moved away because of the radiation.
The disaster didn't just affect the area around Chernobyl. The explosion sent a cloud of radiation across many countries. About 31 people died right away, and around 60 more died later from radiation sickness or cancer. But it's hard to know exactly how many people were affected in the long term. Estimates say anywhere from 4,000 to 60,000 people might have died because of the radiation. The truth about what happened came out when Sweden found radiation at a nuclear plant more than a thousand kilometers away. Their discovery made the world pay attention to what happened at Chernobyl.
Pripyat stands empty, a sad reminder of our mistakes. Its quiet streets hold the echoes of lives that were once bustling with activity. Experts say it might be thousands of years before people can live there again, so nature has taken over. Surprisingly, animals roam freely, seemingly unharmed by the radiation. But their presence reminds us of our resilience. It's a sign that even in tough times, life finds a way.
In the end, who is to blame for the Chernobyl accident? It's a question that lingers, even decades later. Was this disaster caused by a combination of factors, including human error, design flaws, and a lack of safety measures? Did engineers made mistakes during a test, and the reactor design didn't have enough safeguards? Yet, the people who were affected the most were innocent civilians, workers, and their families. So, while we may point fingers, the real focus should be on preventing such tragedies in the future. After all, learning from our mistakes is the first step towards building a safer world for generations to come.
What do you believe caused the accident? I'm curious about your thoughts. Considering the facts, who or what do you think is responsible? Share your theory with me in a comment below.
Source: Digging deep with a caffeine high!
Pic: Decided it was time to join the Midjourney crew.
Big thanks: Shoutout to my husband for being the rock who handles all my endless questions, and to the awesome #Hive community for letting me geek out about my passion for history and mysteries
With love, @tinabrezpike ❤️
It is incredible how much damage can be done by the unconsciousness of men, a terrible accident that could have been avoided. Although fatally it was a mixture of several factors.
I remember that when the socialist camp still existed in Cuba we received Ukrainian children victims of the accident to give them medical attention, even after the fall of the USSR Ukrainian children continued to arrive in Cuba, we always received them with much affection and they had the best attention.
Something like this should not be repeated.
It's actually sad how much of the past is hidden. We still don't know the real truth, and maybe we never will... We still don't know how many victims there actually were. We can only ask ourselves, where are those victims now? We can only be grateful to the people who took care of those affected. I didn't know they sent kids to Cuba... Was this an act of kindness, or did they just want to hide mistakes because the world didn't receive much information from Cuba at that time? But we can only be grateful to you guys for your help and kindness. ❤️ Unfortunately, I'm not sure what we learn from this... We make other mistakes now, and we try to hide them only to show how powerful somebody can be... But now, it's a lot harder to hide the news because of social media, news spreads in a second. On one side, this is good, we can know everything. But on the other side, how many news stories are actually true? We can still manipulate people's minds, and it's sad that we read one news story and believe it without digging deep and maybe finding out that some things are actually not true. I love history and reading, and discovering the truth is just hard. It's hard to know what is real and what's not... Thank you for stopping by ❤️
It was an act of solidarity, Fidel Castro agreed to help Ukrainian children and their families, and I remember that they were treated at the oncology hospital and given medical treatment for cancer. At that time we had a good relationship with the former Soviet Union, but even after the fall of the socialist camp we continued to help them.
It is true that social networks are a double-edged sword, and they can be used to help as well as to distort the news.