Nuclear catastrophe, Chernobyl

Ten years passed since the biggest radioactive catastrophe in the history of humanity happened at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The Russian State medical dosimetric Register was founded after this catastrophe At present in the Register they keep a medical and radiation-dosimetric information about 435.276 persons. 

Environmentally hazardous projects are those where the risk of accidents is very high, which can result in a major and sometimes even catastrophic chemical pollution of the environment. Frequently, these disasters take casualties among the plant personnel, as well as among the nearby settlements population, which were the cases with the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant disaster in Ukraine, or with the pesticide plant accident in Bhopal, India. 

Kenigsberg Y.E., Buglova E.E., 1994. Dose formation of internal exposure according to the peculiarities of casium radionuclides transfer by food chain and efficiency of countermeasures, in Belarus-Japan Symposium Acute and Late Consequences of Nuclear Catastrophes Hirosima-Nagasaki and Chernobyl (Minsk, Belarus, October 3-5, 1994), Proceedings, Minsk, pp. 82-97. 

Besides the input of nuclear fuel material via atomic bomb detonation, reactor accidents also contributed to atmospheric release of anthropogenic radioisotopes, with the Chernobyl reactor catastrophe in the year 1986 as the major source. 

One concern about nuclear power plants, of course, is an echo of the world s first exposure to nuclear power, the atomic bomb blasts. Many people fear that a nuclear power plant may go out of control and explode like a nuclear weapon. In spite of experts insistence that such an event is impossible, a few major disasters have perpetuated the fear of nuclear power plants exploding or failing catastrophically in some other mode. Although commercial nuclear power plants cannot explode, they have a demonstrated potential to pass out of the control of their operators, with unpredictable consequences. By far the most serious of those events was the explosion that occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant near Kiev in the Ukraine in 1986. 

Studies of catastrophic accidents, such as the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound, the Chernobyl nuclear plant explosion in the Soviet Union, the Bhopal gas spill in India, and the incident of the Hubbell Telescope s misguided mirror, reveal a pattern of subordinating safety and quality to costs. Neither the standards for basic safety nor those for the particular industry were met in these cases. Questions for leaders concerning safety standards include those listed here ... 

The Chernobyl nuclear jx)wer plant catastrophe results in gross environmental contamination and leads to thousands of deaths. 

The substantial research eflforts on radioactive materials provided the information needed to establish stringent standards and control procedures that were effective in minimizing disease from occupational and environmental exposures to radioactive materials. Unfortunately, the catastrophic accident that occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear power station in 1986 has left an unfortunate legacy of radioactive contamination of the environment and associated increased potential for radiation-induced disease. The exact influence of this accident and of the radioactive contamination near Russian facilities associated with the nuclear weapons program of the U.S.S.R. will not be known for many decades. 

The greatest concern that most members of the general public have about nuclear energy is the possibility of a catastrophic accident such as occurred in 1986 at Chernobyl in the Ukraine. If reactors have... 

Human health biomonitoring using biomarkers and chemical analyses are used in the following applications (1) Health surveillance of persons who are known to have high occupational or environmental exposures to potentially toxic chemicals. This may include those who work with chemicals, radioactive materials, or biohazards as part of their occupation. Examples include factory workers, chemical industry employees, farmers, health care professionals, nuclear plant employees, and veterans of the Gulf War I. This may also consist of those who are involuntarily exposed to such hazards in their everyday surroundings. Some examples are people living near land fills, factories, hazardous waste sites, or environmental catastrophes such as the Chernobyl... 

The only type of risk that is unique to nuclear power is the risk of a catastrophe such as the Chernobyl disaster of 1996. The potential third-party liability of such events is so high that such risks are uninsurable in normal markets. The US introduced government insurance of nuclear plants with the Price-Anderson Act of 1957 (Rothwell, 2002). In the UK, nuclear operators liability is capped under the provision of the Nuclear Installations Act 1965 and the Energy Act 1983, which implement the international convention on third-party liability signed in Paris in 1960 and Brussels in 1966 (OECD, 2003). 

Certainly the most catastrophic nuclear accident occurred on April 26, 1986, at the Chernobyl unit 4 reactor near Kiev, Ukraine. The accident resulted in a core meltdown, explosion, and fire. 

The two most severe cases of catastrophic failure of nuclear power plants, Chernobyl in 1986 and Fukushima in 2011, are not good case studies for exposure... 

Radioactive iodine isotopes are spread as a result of nuclear power plant disasters. Especially important is with a half-life of eight days. When this iodine isotope is taken up by the thyroid gland, it causes cancer. People Kving and working near a nuclear power station are therefore recommended to have iodine tablets available and to use them in an emergency situation. The tablet s content of normal iodine is taken up by the thyroid gland and saturates it This blocks the uptake of radioactive iodine. After the Chernobyl catastrophe, the intake of dairy products enriched with iodine is of particular importance for the population of Ukraine s western regions. 

Atoms with the same number of protons but different numbers of neutrons in their nuclei are called isotopes. They are chemically identical atoms of the same element but have different masses and may differ in their nuclear properties. Some isotopes are radioactive isotopes or radionuclides, which have unstable nuclei that give off charged particles and gamma rays in the form of radioactivity. Radioactivity may have detrimental, or even fatal, health effects a number of hazardous substances are radioactive and they can cause major environmental problems. The most striking example of such contamination resulted from a massive explosion and fire at a power reactor in the Ukrainian city of Chernobyl in 1986. A more recent episode of radionuclide contamination took place as the result of the catastrophic March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami followed by hydrogen gas explosions that destroyed four reactors and exposed spent fuel rods at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Japan, requiring the evacuation of thousands of nearby residents. 

While public perception of risk is sometimes frustrating to expert risk assessors, it can serve a useful purpose by focusing attention on catastrophic risks that impact whole communities, not just individuals. The risk of a meltdown at a nuclear power plant is small, but the consequences are huge Witness Chernobyl and the continuing effects of radioactive contamination. In the difficult political business of managing risks, risk perception can complement expert risk assessment and help drive the regulatory process forward. 

Of all modem technologies, the highest potential for catastrophe in the public s mind is probably associated with nuclear power. The awesome destructive power of nuclear weapons provides reason for some to fear all things that utilize nuclear energy or emit radiation. The accidents at Three Mile Island (TMI) and Chernobyl strongly reinforced intuitive public concerns about nuclear power. In the U.S., the potential hazards of nuclear power were recognized very early, and some features to prevent, contain, and otherwise protect the public from reactor accidents were applied from the outset. 

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