Environmental Disasters
Essay Preview: Environmental Disasters
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Many environmental disasters have happened through out the history of the world. Many of these disasters have resulted in millions of people developing life threatening diseases and ultimately loosing their lives. This also results in millions of people being evacuated from their homes and hut into an unknown area. This disasters cause millions of people to lose everything that they have ever known. It also results in tremendous amounts of pain and suffering for millions of people because they begin loosing the ones the love due to an environmental disaster. One significant environmental disaster was Chernobyl: Russian nuclear power plant explosion. On April 26, 1986, test were being conducted in nuclear reactor 4 at the nuclear power plant in Ukraine. These test in particular required parts of their security system to be disabled. Various errors in the reactors design and in the judgment of the power plant personnel resulted in the cooling water beginning to boil. This ultimately put a lot of stress on the reactor and increased the energy production by approximately ten times its normal levels. The temperature of the reactor reached more than 2000°C and this caused the fuel rod to melt. During this time the cooling water continue to boil. As time went on the water continued to boil and cause the water cooling pipes to crack and steam began to escape. At about 1:23h continuously escaping steam caused the power plant to explode. The explosion cause a enormous fire to break out and a cloud of various chemicals and radioactive material to form. The explosion as well as the fire instantly killed approximately 31 people in to process. Two days later, the government announced that about 10,000 times the usual amount of cesium-137 was in the atmosphere following the explosion.
The following day, approximately 135,000 people had to be evacuated from their homes that lived in a 30km radius to the explosion. The area has since been labeled a “special zone”. The evacuation of the area then became permanent due to the high levels of radioactivity and it is expected to last for centuries. The radioactive cloud began to blow north and southwest by wind. This caused radioactive measurements to be noticed and calculated in Sweden. The radioactive cloud soon covered a huge portion of Europe. On May 2, the cloud reached the Netherlands and resulted in fresh fruit and vegetables being prohibited for consumption. The World Health Organization (WHO) stated that about 800,000 people have worked on containing the after effects of the explosion. The ones that worked t help contain the explosions after math have only stayed in the contaminated area for a limited amount of time to assist in preventing serious health problems. The Ukrainian government has estimated that approximately 8,000 people have died have died due to exposure to radioactive chemicals during the cleanup process. Following the explosion, hundreds of people were diagnosed with various radiation related illnesses. In Belarus, there was an increase in the amount of people that suffered from thyroid cancer (2.400%) and leukemia (100%). Many children of Chernobyl victims suffer from various birth defects (had a 250% increase) and it furthermore causes cancer and various heart diseases. Approximately 64% of the Ukrainian children under the age of 15 have suffered from cancer due to the fact that they live in the most contaminated areas. Many genetic affects resulted in child mutations ( children being born with missing limbs).