Chernobyl the worst nuclear disaster in history, thousands of people die as the result of human error and design flaw in the reactor 4. The reactor 4 was built in 1983 and was one the Soviet Union proudest moments in the nuclear race and politicians were saying that it could be the start of the Soviet Union becoming a democratic country.
The engineers arriving at the night shift were a very young and inexperienced crew but had the authorisation to carry out a very small but important test on the Reactor number 4. The test was basically to see if the reactor can still create electricity at low energy levels, as the Soviet Union and America were “fighting” in the cold war, so the Russians had to be prepared for anything.
The test was supposed to be conducted in the middle of the day where all of the senior operators were on deck at the power plant, but was cancelled before of the wanting of electricity in the Ukraine.
At 1.24 am the reactor 4 of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant blew up releasing 50 tonnes of radioactive waste into the sky, creating a huge fireball in the reactor. 30 workers inside the reactor die as a result of the blast and the steam released in the blast. Firemen were quick to the seen but did not think of what they have got themselves into and all of them die a result.
The town Pripyat knew that something had happened at the reactor but were unaware of the severity of the disaster continued to go on to their day to day lives as the authority had not told them the full story. The Russian government didn’t say a word to the world until a Sweden nuclear power plant two days later realised that there was radioactive waste a lot higher than usual so scientist carried out test realised that it was coming from Chernobyl.
By then the Russian army where evacuating the nearby town of Pripyat where all over 100 000 people were living (now a ghost town because there is too much radioactive pollution in the area and would harm thousands of people if stayed there for a long time) out of the area and coordinated a 30 km exclusion zone