On February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that special military operations would be carried out in the Donbass region, and a military conflict between Russia and Ukraine broke out. To this day, the negotiations between the two sides have still not reached substantive results, and the conflict has intensified.
However, at the same time that the two sides were fiercely fighting and attacking and defending each other, Xinhua News Agency originally quoted the Russian Defense Daily as saying on February 28 that the Russian airborne troops and a nuclear power plant protection battalion of the Ukrainian National Guard reached an agreement to jointly ensure the safety of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, which became a surprising and warm news on the battlefield.
Originally, the warring sides had already fought each other, but they had reached an agreement on the nuclear power plant and jointly guaranteed the safety of the nuclear power plant. So why is this happening? The answer is very clear: there have been disasters here, and the people here have suffered pains that cannot be erased to this day. Such a tragedy, in today's highly civilized human race, cannot be staged again, nor is it allowed to be staged again.
In 1973, the Soviet Union began construction of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine, and four years later, the nuclear power plant began to operate. Because nuclear technology was not developed at that time, there were a series of problems in both construction design and management technology. Therefore, after the power station was put into operation, large and small accidents occurred frequently, and there were as many as 3 extraordinarily large accidents.
The first time, in 1982, there was an abnormal alarm in the No. 1 reactor in the power station, and later, after inspection by technical personnel, it was found that part of the reactor core had been melted down, fortunately, it was found and disposed of in a timely manner, without serious impact.
The second time, it occurred in 1984, because the staff did not fully follow the operating procedures in the process of operation, the No. 3 reactor, the No. 4 reactor at the same time fault alarm, but also fortunately found early, the power station blocked the news, so at that time, how serious the accident was, there is no specific information to check. However, some media revealed that this accident was caused by the melting down of the core of the nuclear reactor due to the inability to cool in time, fortunately, the correct disposal did not cause the leakage of radioactive materials, but it also made people break out in a cold sweat.
The third time, in 1986, the explosion of the No. 4 reactor of the power station caused the top accident in the history of human nuclear disaster, and the damage to this day is incalculable.
At that time, there was a steam explosion in Reactor No. 4, and from the photos of the damage site, the shell of the entire reactor had been completely deformed and torn, and the roof of the factory building was completely blown through, causing a serious nuclear leak.
After the accident, the Soviet Union mobilized the strength of the whole country and successively invested 600,000 people to carry out rescue, but after all, it was a nuclear accident, whether it was on the human body or the environment, the impact was too great. Although there is no official casualty figure so far, it is true that 31 rescuers died of radiation sickness in half a year. At that time, the wind was blowing northward, and the effects of nuclear radiation pollution soon reached northern Europe, and if Sweden had not monitored the pollution data, people in Europe would not have known that the sky above had been contaminated with nuclear pollution.
Importantly, the danger of a nuclear bomb contamination is not instantaneous, but a gradual process, because the reactor at the accident site is completely sealed 10 days after the accident. However, the concentration of nuclear fuel at this stage of up to 60% has released excess radioactive material. It is estimated that the radiation pollution generated after the nuclear accident is equivalent to 100 times the radiation pollution generated by the atomic bomb explosion in Hiroshima, Japan, and the key is that the radioactive pollution has been seriously spread.
According to authoritative media, because of this accident, 150,000 square kilometers of the Soviet Union were affected, and within 30-70 kilometers of the power station, trees gradually died, and tens of thousands of residents were contaminated with radioactivity. About 7,000 people, including trees in the contaminated area, died one after another in the next decade or so.
What is even more frightening is that 80 kilometers away from the contaminated area, 10 years later, there are still about millions of people affected here, the number of cancer patients has increased significantly, many newborn children, even poultry and animal cubs are deformed, and the number has increased sharply. And those who have been evacuated in contaminated areas may never be able to return to their homes.
In addition to causing physical harm to people, radioactive contamination is more deeply harmful to people. For a period of time, people, including people in some European countries, did not even dare to eat food, vegetables and even milk, and uneasiness and fear even caused tens of thousands of people to commit suicide or suffer from mental illness and die. It can be seen that the harm caused by this nuclear accident to people cannot be described in words, and the disaster cannot be described in words or numbers.
Experts judge that the consequences of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident are difficult to eliminate, and even if they can be eliminated, they must be 100 years later. Because its main radioactive material, cesium-137, has a half-life of about 30 years, and a complete decay of nearly 100 years. Later, rescuers completely sealed reactor No. 4, creating a giant "sarcophagus", and then covered the sarcophagus with a huge arch to minimize the leakage of nuclear material.
However, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant is still fragile, and as long as enough explosives are detonated, the nuclear contaminated material sealed in it will still fly out, which will once again cause great disasters to mankind. This may be the main reason why in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, the two sides jointly guarantee the safety agreement of nuclear power plants.
Because this is no longer a problem between the warring sides, but a problem affecting human security, I am afraid that no country can afford this responsibility.