The accident at Fukushima occurred after a series of tsunami waves struck the facility and disabled systems needed to cool the nuclear fuel. The accident at Chernobyl stemmed from a flawed reactor design and human error. It released about 10 times the radiation that was released after the Fukushima accident.
The Fukushima event has been rated 7 on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale, the same level as the 1986 Chernobyl accident. Even so, Japanese authorities estimate that radiation released at Fukushima is only 10 percent of the amount released from the Ukrainian plant.
The Fukushima accident was an accident in 2011 at the Fukushima Daiichi (“Number One”) nuclear power plant in Japan. It is the second worst nuclear accident in the history of nuclear power generation, behind the Chernobyl disaster.
Called the world's worst-ever civil nuclear incident, it is one of only two nuclear energy accidents rated at seven—the maximum severity—on the International Nuclear Event Scale, the other being the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan.
The worst nuclear accident to date is the Chernobyl disaster which occurred in 1986 in Ukraine. The accident killed approximately 30 people directly and damaged approximately $7 billion of property.
The Chernobyl accident in 1986 was the result of a flawed reactor design that was operated with inadequately trained personnel.
The radioactivity released at Chernobyl tended to be more long-lived than that released by a bomb detonation hence it is not possible to draw a simple comparison between the two events.
While it naturally fades over time, this can sometimes take thousands of years. Scientists have previously said, due to the huge amount of contamination in the Chernobyl area, the exclusion zone will not be habitable for many, many years.
By most estimates, such a blast may have wiped out half of Europe, leaving it riskier to live in for 500,000 years.
They shut down the reactor's power-regulating system and its emergency safety systems, and they removed control rods from its core while allowing the reactor to run at 7 percent power. These mistakes, compounded by others, led to an uncontrolled chain reaction that resulted in several massive explosions.
The earthquake and the ensuing tsunami resulted in the death of 19,729 people (with 2559 still missing) and devastated communities up and down the country. Reactors close to the earthquake, including those operating at Fukushima Daiichi, shut down as designed.
On 11 March 2011, a nuclear accident occurred at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Ōkuma, Fukushima, Japan. The proximate cause of the disaster was the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, which remains the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Japan.
The world's worst nuclear accident has been the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in the Soviet Union, one of two accidents that has been rated as a level 7 (the highest) event on the International Nuclear Event Scale.
According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), there was less total atmospheric release of radioactivity from the Fukushima accident compared with Chernobyl due to the different accident scenarios and mechanisms of radioactive releases.
A large area around the Fukushima nuclear power plant will be uninhabitable for at least 100 years.
The fishing stocks off the Japanese coast are not contaminated (NAR). - Radiation in most of the Evacuation Zone around Fukushima is low enough for people to move back. Except for a relatively small region around the reactors, the risk of evacuees moving back to their homes are the same as driving a car (UNSCEAR).
Although the engineers who waded under Chernobyl to open the sluice gate were exposed to high levels of radiation, all three of them survived following hospitalization.
How long can you stay in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone? There are two exclusion zones in Chernobyl; a 10km inner and 30km outer Exclusion Zone. It is safe to stay in the outer Exclusion Zone overnight.
Valery Alekseyevich Legasov (Russian: Валерий Алексеевич Легасов; 1 September 1936 – 27 April 1988) was a Soviet inorganic chemist and a member of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union. He is primarily known for his efforts to contain the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.
Hiroshima had 46 kg of uranium while Chernobyl had 180 tons of reactor fuel. A reactor also builds up a huge amount of nuclear waste, over the weeks it is running. There is a lot of different waste products, but the worst are cesium, iodine and irradiated graphite moderators.
Chernobyl animals are mutants ...
Scientists have noted significant genetic changes in organisms affected by the disaster: According to a 2011 study in Biological Conservation, Chernobyl-caused genetic mutations in plants and animals increased by a factor of 20.
1. Fukushima Daini Nuclear Power Plant, Japan is one of the world's most radioactive places. Fukushima is still highly radioactive today.
Since the bombs were detonated far above the ground there was little contamination in terms of neutron activation, which causes non-radioactive materials to become radioactive.
According to a report by the Worldwatch Institute on nuclear waste, Karachay is the most polluted (open-air) place on Earth from a radiological point of view.
On April 26, 1986, Chernobyl's reactor number four melted down as a result of human error, releasing vast quantities of radioactive particles and gases into the surrounding landscape – 400 times more radioactivity to the environment than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.