Why did they abandon Chernobyl, but settled down in Hiroshima and Nagasaki

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

If we take the entire history of the existence of mankind, then an atomic attack on large settlements with a large population occurred only once. This event happened at the end of the summer of 1945. It was then that Harry Truman, the thirty-third president of the United States of America, ordered the dropping of nuclear bombs on Japanese Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

Years later, in the eighty-sixth year, a terrible catastrophe occurred in the Soviet Union - an accident at one of the power units of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. In both the first and second cases, the consequences were, to put it mildly, dire.

The Chernobyl accident and the huge release of radiation had a negative impact on many European countries. A number of cities located in the immediate vicinity of the nuclear power plant were evacuated. But within a radius of 30 km from the accident site, they formed an exclusion zone, where it was forbidden to stay.

Both catastrophes have one reason - a nuclear cataclysm. The only difference is the scale of the consequences. If we take the cities of Japan, then in them today the population is about 1,600,000 people who live and work there. As for Chernobyl, there is still no one in the exclusion zone.

The fact that where there was a nuclear explosion it is impossible to live is a well-known fact that does not tolerate objection. But there are significant differences between the two seemingly similar tragedies. Which influenced the current situation. Let's try to figure out why life is in full swing in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but in Chernobyl it froze, and the settlement itself became a ghost town.

If you do not go into details, then in both parts of the planet there was a nuclear cataclysm. Only the nature of the incident and its severity make a significant difference. Uranium is one of the most important factors. Its amount in the bombs that the Americans dropped on cities in Japan was much less than at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in atomic fuel. For comparison: in the reactor (only one) in Chernobyl there were 180 tons, while in "Malysh", the bomb that fell on Hiroshima, 64 kg, moreover, only seven hundred grams participated in the reaction.

1. Hiroshima and Nagasaki

After the nuclear explosion in Japan, residual radiation in the atmosphere could not persist for a long time. First of all, because both dropped bombs exploded while still in the air. About five hundred meters remained to the surface of the earth.

There is a small nuance here. In an explosion in air, the direction of the shock wave goes up, respectively, the bulk of the radiation is carried by air masses, and does not go down and does not go into the soil.

There is also a second point. The overwhelming amount of radionuclides decays during the first two to three minutes. Naturally, the first hours of radiation indicators in the very epicenters of nuclear explosions went off scale, but very quickly they returned to normal.

A month after what happened near Hiroshima, researchers from the United States took measurements of radiation and concluded that there was no danger for the military in this city. Young shoots and flower buds on plants affected by a nuclear explosion also spoke about the dissipation of radiation.

Despite the fact that the radiation indicators in the cities were still above the norm, people gradually began to return to them. At that time, they did not know much about radiation sickness. Only after several years did doctors notice that it was in these areas that the number of patients with oncology was greater than in others.

Gradually, the situation improved, and the level of radiation decreased every year, making settlements with the adjacent territory safer. Currently, in one and in another city, you can live in peace and not be afraid that serious health problems will begin.

2. Chernobyl nuclear power plant

A completely different scenario was observed in Chernobyl. The reactor that exploded contained 3.6 thousand kilograms of uranium. During the explosion, the release of radioactive substances into the atmosphere was five hundred times higher than in the cities of Japan.

Plus, the explosion was ground-based, which means that there was an accelerated spread of radiation over a fairly large area. If an explosion occurs in air, a wave is formed, which spreads harmful elements. Moreover, the distribution itself is one-time. But at nuclear power plants, in addition to a larger amount of emissions, there was also their duration. That is, the process lasted a whole month.

In addition to uranium, the radioactive fuel contained many other no less dangerous components: americium-241, strontium-90, cesium-137, iodine-13, plutonium-239. None of these elements have been identified in Japan.

Today, the radiation level in Chernobyl is much lower. Some of the dangerous elements are no longer found, while others will remain in the soil for millennia. Accordingly, it will not be possible to resume life in this city very soon.