kjackson
One example of a disaster that was caused by humans doing something that was taken too far would be the Chernobyl disaster. On April 26th of 1986, in the Chernobyl power plant located in Pripyat in North Ukraine. There was a planned decrease of reactor power in preparation for a test. The power output unexpectedly dropped to near zero (world nuclear org, 2022). The operators were unable to restore the power level specified by the test program, which put the reactor in an unstable condition(world nuclear org, 2022). This risk was not made evident in the operating instructions, so the operations proceeded with the test. When the test was almost complete, the operators triggered a reactor shutdown. However, a combination of operator negligence and critical design flaws made the reactor primed to explode(world nuclear org, 2022). Two people died in the explosion, a following 28 people died a few weeks later due to acute radiation syndrome(world nuclear org, 2022). Acute radiation syndrome is an acute illness caused by irradiation of the entire body by a high dose of penetrating radiation in a very short period of time(National Center for Environmental Health, 2018). The Chernobyl Forum report says that people in the area have suffered a paralysing fatalism due to myths and misperceptions about the threat of radiation, which has contributed to a culture of chronic dependency. According to an UNSCEAR report in 2018, about 20,000 cases of thyroid cancer were diagnosed 1991-2015 in patients who were 18 and under at the time of the accident. The report states that a quarter of the cases (5000 cases) were “probably” due to high doses of radiation, and that this fraction was likely to have been higher in earlier years, and lower in later years. The accident caused the largest uncontrolled radioactive release into the environment ever recorded for any civilian operation, and large quantities of radioactive substances were released into the air for about 10 days (world nuclear org, 2022). This caused serious social and economic disruption for large populations in Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine. Two radionuclides, the short-lived iodine-131 and the long-lived caesium-137, were particularly significant for the radiation dose they delivered to members of the public(world nuclear org, 2022). This was all caused by human-error, where one negligent activity of one person not checking their job being done to the fullest, caused a chain reaction that costed millions of dollars and changed the lives of thousands of people and hundreds were killed due to their negligence. If they were to acknowledge the wrong doing of the situation, there could have been a correction of action. There was no true preparedness in regards to a situation like this happening which affected more people in the aftermath.
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