BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
On April 26, 1986 the Chernobyl disaster occurred in the city of Chernobyl, Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. The Chernobyl disaster was a nuclear accident that occurred when four nuclear reactors blew up due to workers mistakes. The
accident was the largest radioactive discharge ever recorded and it caused radioactive material to be sent into the atmosphere for 10 days. The radiation spread for miles killing everyone in its path, but its official death toll is unaccounted for and ranges from a few to thousands, with the official Soviet death toll at 31 people from the disaster itself. More than 600,000 decontamination workers, also known as liquidators were sent into Chernobyl in an effort to help clean up and neutralize the nuclear radiation. Many people who were sent in at the start of the disaster died within a few weeks from contamination.The Chernobyl divers were of significant importance to the cleanup efforts in Chernobyl.
The Chernobyl divers had the task of draining the pool of water that was located beneath the reactor. The pool of water was there for emergencies in case the cooling pumps or steam pipes broke. When the explosion occurred the pool was flooded with dirty water from firefighting and from many broken pipes. This caused the materials around the reactor floor to heat up and mix together to create a lava-like radioactive liquid. This liquid was feared to cause a mass steam explosion that would hit Europe and cause a larger amount of damage. The only way of opening the pool and draining it was to dive into the radioactive water and open the gates.
Three volunteers, equipped only in diving suits and with a faulty lamp, took the job of opening the pool gates upon themselves. Two of the divers where Chernobyl engineers, Alexi Ananeko and Valeri Bezpalov, who knew where the valves to open the gate where located. The third man was named Boris Baranov who went with them to provide them with light from an underwater lamp which later failed. The failure of the lamp caused the two engineers to find the valves by feeling their way to them in the darkness. Luckily the two engineers were able to find and open the valves and all three men returned to the surface. Unfortunately after their exposure to the radiation, all three men suffered from radiation sickness and later died.
Chernobyl is still considered uninhabitable today, but is open to tour visits and is said to have low, unharmful levels of radiation. The Chernobyl disaster has been linked to the increase in radiation levels in the majority of the countries across Europe, along with being the cause for multiple human deaths and diseases.
MORAL COURAGE
The divers of the Chernobyl disaster risked their lives to extreme levels of radiation exposure in order to save the lives of thousands, But they wanted to avoid the unimaginable damages that could have impacted or destroyed parts of Europe and possibly other countries or the world. They essentially chose to give up their lives for there own core values. There core vaules are community because there community was damaged but it would have been more damaged if they didn't do what they did. Another core value is responsibility because they felt responsible for they people of Europe that the radiation could have spread to. They also had hope because they were hopeful that what they did would help everyone more. Another core value is loyalty because they where loyal to there country by not letting the radiation spread. They were in impact to the world around them because many other people could have died from the raditation, but it didn't spread.They were just three normal workers. Two were enginiers and one soldier who accopined they with a light to see the valves. Though this light failed they were still normal workers who stepped up to do the job.
On April 26, 1986 the Chernobyl disaster occurred in the city of Chernobyl, Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. The Chernobyl disaster was a nuclear accident that occurred when four nuclear reactors blew up due to workers mistakes. The
accident was the largest radioactive discharge ever recorded and it caused radioactive material to be sent into the atmosphere for 10 days. The radiation spread for miles killing everyone in its path, but its official death toll is unaccounted for and ranges from a few to thousands, with the official Soviet death toll at 31 people from the disaster itself. More than 600,000 decontamination workers, also known as liquidators were sent into Chernobyl in an effort to help clean up and neutralize the nuclear radiation. Many people who were sent in at the start of the disaster died within a few weeks from contamination.The Chernobyl divers were of significant importance to the cleanup efforts in Chernobyl.
The Chernobyl divers had the task of draining the pool of water that was located beneath the reactor. The pool of water was there for emergencies in case the cooling pumps or steam pipes broke. When the explosion occurred the pool was flooded with dirty water from firefighting and from many broken pipes. This caused the materials around the reactor floor to heat up and mix together to create a lava-like radioactive liquid. This liquid was feared to cause a mass steam explosion that would hit Europe and cause a larger amount of damage. The only way of opening the pool and draining it was to dive into the radioactive water and open the gates.
Three volunteers, equipped only in diving suits and with a faulty lamp, took the job of opening the pool gates upon themselves. Two of the divers where Chernobyl engineers, Alexi Ananeko and Valeri Bezpalov, who knew where the valves to open the gate where located. The third man was named Boris Baranov who went with them to provide them with light from an underwater lamp which later failed. The failure of the lamp caused the two engineers to find the valves by feeling their way to them in the darkness. Luckily the two engineers were able to find and open the valves and all three men returned to the surface. Unfortunately after their exposure to the radiation, all three men suffered from radiation sickness and later died.
Chernobyl is still considered uninhabitable today, but is open to tour visits and is said to have low, unharmful levels of radiation. The Chernobyl disaster has been linked to the increase in radiation levels in the majority of the countries across Europe, along with being the cause for multiple human deaths and diseases.
MORAL COURAGE
The divers of the Chernobyl disaster risked their lives to extreme levels of radiation exposure in order to save the lives of thousands, But they wanted to avoid the unimaginable damages that could have impacted or destroyed parts of Europe and possibly other countries or the world. They essentially chose to give up their lives for there own core values. There core vaules are community because there community was damaged but it would have been more damaged if they didn't do what they did. Another core value is responsibility because they felt responsible for they people of Europe that the radiation could have spread to. They also had hope because they were hopeful that what they did would help everyone more. Another core value is loyalty because they where loyal to there country by not letting the radiation spread. They were in impact to the world around them because many other people could have died from the raditation, but it didn't spread.They were just three normal workers. Two were enginiers and one soldier who accopined they with a light to see the valves. Though this light failed they were still normal workers who stepped up to do the job.
01/01/1193
Chernobyl, as a city, Begins Chernobyl first appearred on a charter in 1193. The city was known as a hunting-lodge of Knyaz Rostislavich. Most histrocial researchers that reseached chernobyl believed that only a city that had been renamed, which was orginially known as the city of Strezhev. The ancient city of Chernobyl is historically connected to the Mongol-Tatar invasion, as well as Lithuanian and Polish rule. |
April 25
Day 1 1:00 amThe reactor was running at full power with normal operation. Steam power was directed to both turbines of the power generators. Slowly the operators began to reduce power for the test. The purpose of the test was to observe the dynamics of the RMBK reactor with limited power flow. |
1:05 pmTwelve hours after power reduction was initiated the reactor reached 50% power. Now only one turbine was needed to take in the decreased amount of steam caused by the power decrease and turbine #2 was switched off. |
2:00 pmUnder the normal procedures of the test the reactor would have been reduced to 30% power, but the Soviet electricity authorities refused to allow this because of an apparent need for electricity elsewhere, so the reactor remained at 50% power for another 9 hours.
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April 26
Day 2 12:28 amThe Chernobyl staff received permission to resume the reactor power reduction. One of the operators made a mistake. Instead of keeping power at 30%, he forgot to reset a controller which caused the power to plummet to 1% because of water which was now filling the core, and xenon (a neutron absorber) which was building up in the reactor. This amount of power was too low for the test. The water added to the reactor is heated by the neuclear reaction and turned into steam to turn the turbines of the generator. |
1:00-1:20 amThe operator forced the reactor up to 7% power by removing all but 6 of the control rods. This was a violation of porcedure and the reactor was never built to operate at such low power. The RBMK reactor is unstable when its core is filled with water. The operator tried to take over the flow of the water which was returning from the turbine manually which is very difficult because small temperature changes can cause large power fluctuations. The operator was not succesful in getting the flow of water corrected and the reactor was getting increasingly unstable. The operator disabled emergency shutdown procedures because a shutdown would abort the test. |
1:22 amBy 01:22, when the operators thought they had the most stable conditions, they decided to start the test. The operator blocked automatic shutdown on low water level and the loss of both turbines because of a fear that a shutdown would abort the test and they would have to repeat tests. |
1:23 am (The test begins)The remaining turbine was shut down |
1:23:40 amPower in the reactor began to gradually rise because of the reduction in water flow caused by the turbine shutdown which lead to an increase in boiling. The operator initiated manual shut down which lead to a quick power increase due to the control rod design. |
1:23:44 amDisaster Point- The reactor reached 120 times its full power. All the radioactive fuel disintegrated, and pressure from all of the excess steam which was supposed to go to the turbines broke every one of the pressure tubes and blew off the entire top shield of the reactor. |