Conversation:

Thank you for preparing such a detailed and informative Entry.

Thank you, glad you liked it .

Very Very excellent indeed.

I had read a novel by Frederick Pohl based on Chernobyl. While it was a work of fiction it did well at portraying the brave men who went on to the roof to fight the graphite fires knowing it would probably kill them.

Also, one of the main things that influenced the Soviet government to admit the accident was images taken by a French "weather" satellite of the fire.

nice read and it was really too good that the french were there monitoring the weather

I agree - I didn't know too much about this accident, but what I have learnt today will stick with me. Thank you for writing such a clear, detailed account of what happened.
Superb work.

I agree, this article is well written, and provides all of the nessesary information. I wanted to make mention of two things:

1) Statistics show that every person living in Canada likely recieved two to three times the normal radiation levels during the summer of 1986, something that they had no choice about.

2) Predictions from many experts before the disaster had stated in public that the likelyhood of an accident of this magnitude exceeded 1,000,000 to 1. In retrospect, we had 2 of these accidents in 40 years. We should view future predictions of nuclear safety with far greater skeptisism.

thanks again for the great article.

Hi,

1) I'd be extremely surprised at that. Most figures I've seen are in the region of 2% temporary increase, even in Europe.

2) It must be 1,000,000 to 1 per million hours of operation, or per year per reactor or something. What was the other accident?

Again, thanks for the kind words

Very long answer to the last question but since its on the front page i'll answer it.
I suspect the other incident was the three mile island one where radiation leaked but unlike at Chernobyl it was contained by the stell covering around the plant. This is now standard on all plants and requires a powerful explosion to breach before radiation can escape ( un addition to whatever is needed to breach the reactor walls.