While a Chernobyl-type event is unlikely, the containment vessel isn’t designed to withstand explosive ordinance such as artillery shells, said Robin Grimes, a professor of materials science at Imperial College London. Chernobyl didn’t have this kind of structure. Nuclear experts on Friday stressed that the Zaporizhzhia plant is much safer than Chernobyl because the reactor is housed inside a reinforced concrete containment building designed to prevent radioactive material from escaping in the event of an accident. The accident raised safety concerns that led Japan and many other countries to curtail the use of nuclear power stations. Twenty-five years later, an earthquake and tsunami triggered a meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan, forcing the evacuation of more than 100,000 people. “Radioactive fallout scattered over much of the Northern Hemisphere via wind and storm patterns, but the amounts dispersed were in many instances insignificant,” the International Atomic Energy Agency said. By 2005, more than 6,000 thyroid cancers were reported among children and adolescents in the affected area, many of which were most likely caused by radiation, according to a report from the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Radiation. The initial explosion killed two plant workers, and 28 others died within the next three months. The accident and fire that followed released massive amounts of radioactive material, forcing the evacuation of nearby communities and contaminating 150,000 square kilometers (60,000 square miles) of land in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine. That’s what happened on April 26, 1986, when a sudden surge of power during a reactor systems test destroyed Unit 4 at the Chernobyl power plant in northern Ukraine, which was then part of the Soviet Union. “The fact is that when things go really wrong with nuclear, you can begin to write off a lot of people’s lives.’’ “I didn’t really sleep last night,” said Paul Dorfman, who led the European Environment Agency’s response to Chernobyl and was glued to the news from Ukraine on his phone. GOP steps up crime message in midterm's final stretch
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