When a routine test went catastrophically wrong, a chain reaction went out of control in No 4 reactor of Chernobyl nuclear power station in Ukraine, creating a fireball that blew off the reactor’s 1,000-tonne steel-and-concrete lid. Burning graphite and hot reactor-core material ejected by the explosions started numerous other fires, including some on the combustible tar roof of the adjacent reactor unit. There were 31 fatalities as an immediate result of the explosion and acute radiation exposure in fighting the fires, and more than 200 cases of severe radiation sickness in the days that followed.
I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.
J. Robert Oppenheimer at the moment of the Atomic Bomb Explosion, quoting from The Bhagvad Gita
J. Robert Oppenheimer at the moment of the Atomic Bomb Explosion, quoting from The Bhagvad Gita
