The Chornobyl Disaster through the Prism of Postmodernist Literature and Cinema

Abstract

The Chornobyl Power Complex, located north of Kyiv, had four RBMK-1000 reactors. The reactor design had a positive void coefficient, contributing to the accident. The Chornobyl accident in 1986 resulted from a flawed reactor design and inadequate operator training, disabling shutdown mechanisms, causing a power surge, and leading to a series of explosions. A steam explosion and fires released over 5% of the radioactive reactor core into the environment, leading to widespread deposition of radioactive materials in Europe. The Chornobyl accident resulted in the largest uncontrolled release of radioactive materials ever recorded in civilian operations, lasting about 10 days. This event had severe social and economic consequences for populations in Ukraine and the USSR at the time. While most of the released materials settled nearby as dust and debris, lighter particles were carried by the wind across Ukraine, belarus, russia, Scandinavia, and parts of Europe. Casualties included firefighters who responded to the initial fires on the turbine building roof. Although the fires were extinguished within a few hours, radiation doses on the first day led to 28 deaths, including six firefighters, by the end of J uly 1986.