I am associated with the University of Arizona and with NATS 101.
You can send email to me at jbegg@U.Arizona.EDU.
My name is John Begg. I am 18 years old and I am originally from the southern suburbs of Chicago. When I was 17, my family and I moved to Prescott, Arizona. A year later, we moved again to Phoenix. I decided to come to the University of Arizona after visiting the campus during the spring of 2000. This is my second semester at the University. I have not chosen a major yet, but I have an interest in astronomy and filmmaking
The Chernobyl Accident
In 1986 a major accident occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear power station in the Soviet Union. The station is located in the town of Pryp'yat, 10 miles northeast of the city of Chernobyl, and it contains four reactor units that can individually produce over 1,000 megawatts of electrical power. Chernobyl came on-line between the years 1977 and 1983. On the days of April 25 and 26, 1986, technicians began an experiment on reactor unit 4. The experiment was very poorly designed and, on the 26th, at 1:23 AM, a chain reaction occurred in the core of the reactor that quickly went out of control. Several fiery explosions blew off the steel and concrete reactor lid releasing huge amounts of radiation into the atmosphere. Carried by air currents, the radiation traveled thousands of miles across Europe, and into the countries of France, Italy, and Ukraine. On April 27, the town of Pryp'yat was evacuated. The Soviets attempted to cover up the disaster, but the incident was so huge and widespread that a cover up was futile. By May 4, the radiation and the reactor were contained, but not before 32 people died. Years after the accident, thousands more would develop cancer and birth defects. The amount of radiation that leaked into the atmosphere was greater than that of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Chernobyl incident was the worst nuclear plant disaster in history.
Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica Online
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