Chernobyl Disaster

  The Chernobyl disaster was a steam explosion that happened in a nuclear power plant in Ukraine on April 26, 1986. On that day operators were performing safety tests on the RBMK reactor (An RBMK reactor is a giant tank that holds radioactive elements) which included putting the reactor in dangerously low power state. During this low-power state, xenon began to build up causing the nuclear fission process to be blocked which also caused the core temperature to rise, making the water to boil and produce steam. The steam makes the nuclear fission more efficient, speeding it up. This produces more heat which boils the water faster, creating more steam. With all this steam built up and no possible way to escape the steam caused an explosion. This steam explosion caused another explosion where graphite was shot into the air creating a chemical reaction that terminated the nuclear reactions in the core and it was so powerful it made a big hole in the reactor building. The disaster resulted in the death of 28 operators and firemen. In the months to come, several others would die because of the amount of radiation that was exposed to them.

The accident caused the largest uncontrolled radioactive release in the environment. Radioactive substances were released into the air for about 10 days and traveled over Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, and to some extent over Scandinavia and Europe. A forest close to Chernobyl has been named the “Red Forest” because so many trees turned reddish-brown and died after absorbing high levels of radiation. No animals died as a direct result of the explosion but Soviet officers were ordered to shoot any stray animals within the 1000-square-mile this was the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.

Since there are 11 operational RBMK reactors in Russia changes were made for safety reasons. The Vienna Convention was reformed, to be an international agreement regulating treaties between states. It establishes comprehensive rules, procedures, and guidelines for how treaties are generally operated. (this convention will be exclusively relevant to a nuclear incidents).