• Opinion by Analysis by Peter Custers (leiden, the netherlands)
• Monday, April 25, 2011
• Inter Press Service

The accident could have served as a wake-up call to the whole of humanity. Twenty-five years ago, on Apr. 26 1986, disaster struck at the fourth reactor of the Chernobyl nuclear complex in the Ukrainian state of the former Soviet Union.

The accident actually started taking shape in the preceding night, when workers undertook a turbine test that had incompletely been carried out before the nuclear plant became operational. When the test was being carried out, the automatic emergency system was shut down, undermining reactor safety.

© Inter Press Service (2011) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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