The Chernobyl accident and after

In my opinion and the opinion of other experts, there were two primary causes of the Chernobyl tragedy. The first was that although the plant was certainly very good from a production point of view, it had been designed with excessive optimism as far as 

The second fatal circumstance was that the operators were working, on that night in April 1986, in a condition of frantic hurry for various reasons. 

Although this reactor had been provided with leakproof and pressure resistant containment as a result of the prevailing changes in attitude already discussed, the containment did not include a significant portion of the reactor itself (a remarkable design decision). In particular, the fuel channel heads were directly put in a normal industrial building. A completely uncontained accident, therefore, happened. The reasons for the adverse design characteristics may have been financial (but expert opinion differs). 

The general lesson to be learned is always the same no weak points compromising safety must be left in a plant. Human errors, as in the cases of TMI and Chernobyl, will succeed in finding them and will cause disasters and fatalities. I don t believe, as some anti-nuclear people maintain, that if an accident can happen, sooner or later it will happen , however, experience indicates that accident possibility must be seriously considered during all the phases of the life of a nuclear plant.  

However, for the sake of completeness, it has to be said that the Chernobyl-type reactors were not well known in the Western world. The pertinent information was kept somewhat confidential because this reactor could potentially be used for plutonium production and therefore it was interesting from a military point of view.  

---