Imagine visiting the beautiful Russian Lake Karachay only to drop dead an hour later from lethal nuclear pollution (Zimmerman). This radiation began in the mid 1940s. The Soviet Union built a secret city in Southern Urals called Ozyorsk and constructed the Mayak plutonium plant, formerly known as Chelyabinsk-40 and later as Chelyabinsk-65 after the postal codes of the site (Wikipedia contributors). Nuclear weapons began to be produced in much of a hasty, reckless manner considering no plans to get rid of waste were thought through. After three years of dumping waste into the Techa River, which provided water for about 39 towns and villages, profecionalists found the river was emitting "5 rontgens of radiation an hour" (Handley). Andrew Handley, a researcher, claims thousands of villIgers had to be relocated, and for the next 40 years, Lake Karachay would be the primary waste resivor. Not only has this pollution become a threat to Russia, but if the dam containing Lake Karachay were to break, the water could bleed into the Atlantic Ocean, threatening wild life and the water cycle. That being said, Russia is responsible for whatever damage the lake has caused in the past. Nuclear production should have never began without taking extreme safety precautions. Now that they've gotten themselves into this pickle, however, it again is their responsibility to insure the contamination does not spread by keeping a close eye on it. Perhaps Soviet Russia also pay for the damages and health problems the radiation has caused.
According to researcher Allan Bellows, Chronic Radiation Syndrome began to flare through workers of the nuclear plutonium as pollution started to accumulate. Employers complained of suffering soreness, low bloo...
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This source described Lake Karachay today, and what happened to the operating system for the nuclear weapons in the Soviet Union.
Wikipedia contributors. "Mayak." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 24 Jan. 2014. Web. 10 Feb. 2014.
Wikipedia gave me information about the Mayak company. I used this source because it helped me understand where the pollution originated from.
ZAITCHIK, ALEXANDER. "Inside the Zone." Freezerbox Magazine. N.p., 17 Oct. 2017. Web. 11
Feb. 2014.
I used this source as more incite as to what happened during the vat explosions. The author writes long and in detail about all of the incidents that have come along since the Mayak company began its production. This added to my background information.
One of the biggest and longest lasting environmental impacts of the detonation of the atomic bomb is the radiation contaminations that are left over. These contaminations spread into water, air, animals, soil and into the atmosphere. What’s worse is that these contaminations have materials that have very long half-life meaning that their radiation effects do not decay quickly. “Many of the substances released, including plutonium, uranium, strontium, cesium, benzene, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), mercury and cyanide, are carcinogenic and/or mutagenic and remain hazardous for thousands, some for hundreds of thousands, of year” (The Effects of nuclear weapons). The spread of these contaminates will cause significant health risks to animals ca...
I wish in this paper to sketch a project involving nuclear iconography and post-Cold War culture. At the heart of this project is the claim that the current historical moment forms a legitimation crisis for the scientific, military, industrial, governmental, and "cultural" institutions whose interests are configured in the design, manufacture, deployment, and "use" of nuclear weapons. Within this moment, a variety of progressive and regressive movements have been intitiated through the production and reception of nuclear weapons rhetoric. The role of visual iconography in nuclear hegemony has traditionally received minor attention (e.g., compared with the "nukespeak" of foreign policy, mass media news coverage, and literary works). Recent scholarly articles and books have attempted to correct this verbalist imbalance by examining the genres and discourses of nuclear art (e.g., painting), cinema and photography. Collectively, this work establishes that the Bomb is -- after W.J.T. Mitchell -- an "imagetext" in which verbal and iconic discourses interanimate to produce ways of (not) seeing and forms of (not) feeling that have historically positioned cultural subjects in relation to the technologies, policies, figures, locations, events, and institutions (in both senses as "customary practices" and "formal organizations") which have constituted the nuclear condition . . .
Early in the morning of April 27, 1986, the world experienced its largest nuclear disaster ever (Gould 40). While violating safety protocol during a test, Reactor 4 at the Chernobyl power plant was placed in a severely unstable state, and in a matter of seconds the reactor output shot up to 120 times the rated output (Flavin 8). The resulting steam explosion tossed aside the reactor’s 1,000 ton concrete covering and released radioactive particles up to one and a half miles into the sky (Gould 38). The explosion and resulting fires caused 31 immediate deaths and over a thousand injuries, including radiation poisoning (Flavin 5). After the accident more than 135,000 people were evacuated from their Ukrainian homes, but the major fallout occurred outside of the Soviet Union’s borders. Smaller radioactive particles were carried in the atmosphere until they returned to earth via precipitation (Gould 43). The Soviets quickly seeded clouds to prevent rainfall over their own land, so most of the radioactivity burdened Western Europe, Scandinavia, and the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans (Flavin 12). This truly international disaster had far reaching effects; some of these were on health, the environment, social standards, and politics.
...ernobyl power plant. The highest doses of radiation were received by the fireman and the personnel of the power station on the night of the accident. About 600 000 persons of recovery operation workers (civilian and military) have received special certificates confirming their status as liquidators. The evacuation of the nearby residents was carried out at different times after the accident on the basis of the radiation situation and of the distance of the populated areas from the damaged reactor. For inhabitants of contaminated areas of the former Soviet Union, they continued to live in the contaminated territories surrounding the Chernobyl reactor although efforts were made to limit their doses. The average doses from 134Cs and 137Cs that were received during the first 10 years after the accident by the residents of contaminated areas are estimated to be 10 mSv.
Chernobyl, one word that still strikes pain and fear in the hearts of many, even after 28 years is still causing serious damage. It was largest nuclear disaster ever, Chernobyl was “. . . about 400 times more potent than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima during World War II . . .” (Walmsley “26 years on: helping Chernobyl's children”). The disaster was not immediately seen as a large threat, and this is why so many lives were taken or destroyed.
Chernobyl was the greatest nuclear disaster of the 20th century. On April 26th, 1986, one of four nuclear reactors located in the Soviet Union melted down and contaminated a vast area of Eastern Europe. The meltdown, a result of human error, lapsed safety precautions, and lack of a containment vessel, was barely contained by dropping sand and releasing huge amounts of deadly radioactive isotopes into the atmosphere. The resulting contamination killed or injured hundreds of thousands of people and devastated the environment. The affects of this accident are still being felt today and will be felt for generations to come.
Chernobyl (chĬrnō´byēl) is the uninhibited city in north Ukraine, near the Belarus boundary, on the Pripyat River. Ten miles to the north, in the town of Pripyat, is the Chernobyl nuclear powerstation, site of the worst nuclear reactor disaster in history ("Chernobyl", Columbia Encyclopedia). To specify, On April 26, 1986, Unit Four of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor exploded in Ukraine, injuring human immune systems and the genetic structure of cells, contaminating soils and waterways. Nearly 7 tons of irradiated reactor fuel was released into the environment—roughly 340 million curies. Included in the release were radioactive elements with a half-life of 16 million years. Yet, we humans cannot defe...
... chain reaction and power production could increase if cooling water was lost or turned into steam, in comparison to most Western designs. Since 1989, over 1000 nuclear engineers from the Soviet Union have visited Western nuclear power plants and there have been many mutual visits. Over 50 alike provisions between East and West nuclear plants have been put in place. Many other international programs were initiated after the Chernobyl disaster. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safety evaluates projects for each particular type of Soviet reactor, bringing together operators and Western engineers to focus on safety improvements. The Chernobyl board report said that up to six million people are now getting or are eligible for benefits as 'Chernobyl victims'. We are slowly rebuilding from this horrendous disaster but together we can learn and overcome it.
To fully understand the adverse health effects associated with the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, one must acknowledge what radiation is as well as the adverse health effects of two types of cancer, Leukemia and thyroid
Chernobyl’s nuclear disaster was due to the woefully inadequate design deficiencies of Soviet nuclear plants at the time, the absence of a safety code or practice, and violations of the nuclear plant safety procedures (Safety Nuclear Reactors). The Chernobyl incident wouldn’t have been as bad, but Soviet reactors did not implement containment structures into the reactor designs until after 1980. This left few options to try and contain the leaking radiation. The nuclear plants that are in the US today are much safer than the old plants that were built in the Soviet Union. Safety procedures and containment protocols for radiation are now the norm and many safety measures are now in place. These steps to make nuclear plants safer for everyone are evidenced by the amount of nuclear accidents that have taken place since new safety measures have been put in place. There have only been three nuclear accidents related to power plants since nuclear energy has started being utilized around the globe. Nuclear power plants have been generating electricity for over sixty years and there have only been three incidents related to them. Chernobyl is the only nuclear meltdown to have people die as a result of radiation leaking and radiation
Humans were a victims of the Chernobyl nuclear accident which affected their lifestyle and their health. People of Chernobyl were evacuated to clean and safe areas. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) (2006), there were 116 000 people who were evacuated from Chernobyl region to other safe areas in the summe...
The worst accident in the history of this nuclear power generation occurred on the morning of April 26, 1986. It was at the Chernobyl (Ukraine) nuclear power station in the Soviet Union. At 1:32AM Lieutenant Colonel Leonid Telyatnikov received a telephone call and was told that there was a fire at the nuclear power plant. There were many reasons their plant had backfired. These reasons included human error and poor plant design due to the cold war. Chernobyl was located in the former Soviet Union in what is now Ukraine. The area in and around Chernobyl is now a nuclear wasteland. People are not supposed to live in these areas, yet they still do, even with the danger of mutations and radiation sickness. For the people and countries affected by the radiation, this was a horrible, terrifying and angering experience. Villages were evacuated late and not many things were done in time to save lives and prevent more damages.
On April 26, 1986 the worlds worst nuclear disaster happened just outside the town of Pripyat. Located not too far from the capital city Kiev, Ukraine. According to History.com, More than 70,000 people have suffered from the effects of this disaster. Along with much of the land (18 square miles) around that area will not be habitable for the next 150 years, forcing as many as 150,000 citizens to re-locate permanently. At the time of the explosion, Chernobyl was the largest and the oldest nuclear power plant in the world. With four 1,000 megawatt reactors, one reactor explosion and meltdown could affect hundreds, if not thousands of people. Still, the soviet government tried to cover it up or hide this from its own people, as well as the rest of the world. The Soviet Union initially reported the death of two individuals and requested advice for fight graphite fires. Even as Sweden was starting to pick up dangerous levels of radioactivity, the Soviet Union continued to not take responsibility and warn surrounding nations. It wasn't until years later that the full story is released to the public.
Stuart, David, and George Stuart. Palenque Eternal City of the Maya. 1st ed. W W norton & CO Inc, 2008. 1-272. Print.
The Maya culture has a long history that started in about 1000 BC. The history of the Maya is divided up into four different time periods: The Middle Preclassic Period, Late Preclassic Period, Classic Period, and Postclassic Period. The Middle Preclassic Period was when the small areas started to become city-like in the way that they started to build larger temples. The Late Preclassic Period was when the cities began to expand with paved roads and massive pyramids. The Classic Period was the time the Maya civilization hit it’s peak. Populations were growing rapidly and the structure of politics was formed. The Postclassic Period was when warfare was on the rise and cities were being abandoned(Coe 2005). This paper will focus on the Classic Period due to the fact that that is the greatest time period in Maya history.