ChernobylThe Soviet Disaster

April 26, 1986

The Cause of the Accident

Chernobyl Chronology

This link will take you to a site that gives details about the series of steps taken by the plant operators, the cloud of radioactive dust and where it traveled, and other information.

Immediately after the Accident

• At 1:30 A.M. on April 26, 1986 reactor #4 exploded due to built up steam in the reactor core itself. Twenty percent of the radioactive contents of the core were blown 2/3 of a mile in the air.

The Sarcophagus• A twenty-eight story

building, called the sarcophagus, constructed of lead, steel, and concrete was built over the crumbled remains of the power plant

Chernobyl pictured in 1995(Notice there are NO containment domes.)

The abandoned city of Pripyat in 1995 (Note the Chernobyl plant in the background)

The photo shows the interior of an RBMK reactor after it has been shut down.The round discs are the tops of the individual fuel bundles.

Links to additional Chernobyl information

Chernobyl

This link is to a National Geographic video series about Chernobyl. It also includes a drawing of building that has been designed to supplant the Sarcophagus, which is currently crumbling.

Yucca Mountain

This is an underground depository for nuclear waste from America’s nuclear power plants. It

is built but not yet in operation.

Currently all waste generated by America’s power plants is stored on the plant sites.

Unfortunately the capacity of the plants to hold the waste is fast running out.

Yucca Mountain, which is about seventy miles from Las Vegas was chosen because it is geologically stable and has virtually no available ground water. The water table is hundreds of feet below the repository.

• The north entrance to Yucca Mountain and one of the ridgeline vents.• Construction was begun over twenty years ago.• A rail line and service road come directly to the entrances.

This is one of the many tunnels within Yucca Mountain. The vertical shaft is deeper than the Empire State Building is high, and the horizontal tunnels run for many miles. Note the railway track running down the center of the tunnel.