A close call at Ukraine reactor: On luck and nuclear disasters

As a scholar working in the field of nuclear disasters, I watched in horror as Russia tried to capture the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant—likely for strategic military purposes, or to control the country’s supply of energy. I became especially worried when shelling set part of the complex on fire and began to wonder if another nuclear catastrophe was out to happen. Many of these fears were echoed by Ukraine’s Foreign Minister, who claimed in a viral tweet that a potential disaster at the plant would be ten times larger than Chernobyl, which remains the biggest nuclear catastrophe to this day.

Read the rest at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists