[1945wastheyearofterrorforJapanOnAugust6theskywasclearwhenat08:15(localtime)theAmericanB-29bomberEnolaGaydroppedLittleBoytheatomicbombthatalmost instantly caused the death of 140,000 people.
Three days later, given Japan’s refusal to surrender to the allies, within the framework of World War II, the US dropped a second bomb, Fat Man, on Nagasaki, thus marking the end of the conflict and the beginning of an ordeal that for 74 years the Japanese have been mitigating.
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A tragedy, although on a different scale, but which also involved the use of nuclear energy, Chernobyl lived on April 26, 1986.
Uncontrolled overheating of the nuclear reactor core at the plant in the region led to two successive explosions, followed by a widespread fire, which blew off the lid of a 1,200-tonne reactor and ejected large amounts of radioactive material into the atmosphere, forming a cloud radioactive spread across Europe and North America.
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To this day there is no consensus on the number of people who were really affected by the tragedy, since official figures speak of only 30 dead, but the number of affected may be greater than 600 thousand people directly, plus the 5 million or more who had some kind of contact with radioactive material.
Chernobyl, to this day, remains uninhabited by humans in an exclusion zone of 30 square kilometers, unlike Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which are already populated by a million and a half people. Why? the portal specialized in technology Gizmodo solved this question and these are the three main reasons.
Quantity, reaction efficiency and location
“Most experts agree that areas in the 30-kilometre Chernobyl exclusion zone are terribly contaminated with radioactive isotopes such as cesium 137, strontium 90 and iodine 131 and, therefore, they are not safe for human habitation,” explains the portal.
However, “neither Nagasaki nor Hiroshima suffers from these conditions. This difference is attributable to three factors: (1) the Chernobyl reactor had much more nuclear fuel; (2) it was used much more efficiently in the reactions; and (3) The whole mess exploded at ground level.”
1. Quantity
“Little Boy had about 140 pounds of uranium, Fat Man contained about 14 pounds of plutonium, and Chernobyl Reactor No. 4 had about 180 tons of nuclear fuel.”
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2. Reaction efficiency
“Only about two pounds of Little Boy’s uranium actually reacted. Similarly, only about two pounds of Fat Man’s plutonium underwent nuclear fission. However, at Chernobyl, at least seven tons of nuclear fuel escaped into the atmosphere.” Also, as the nuclear fuel melted, volatile radioisotopes were released, including 100% of its xenon and krypton, 50% of its radioactive iodine, and 20-40% of its cesium.”
3. Location
Both Fat Man and Little Boy were detonated in mid-air, hundreds of feet above the Earth’s surface. As a result, the radioactive debris was lifted up and dispersed by the mushroom cloud instead of being drilled into the ground. On the other hand, when reactor number four melted down to ground level, the ground experienced neutron activation, where already active neutrons in the burning fuel reacted with the ground causing it to become radioactive.”
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TIME
*With information from AFP and Gizmodo
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