The largest man-made disasters in modern Russia. The worst man-made disasters

Image copyright RIA Novosti Image caption Accident at Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station killed 75 people

Among the largest man-made disasters in the modern history of Russia are accidents at mines and power plants, the death of aircraft and ships, fires and the collapse of roofs of buildings.

December 2, 1997 - methane explosion at the Zyryanovskaya mine

A methane explosion at the Zyryanovskaya mine in the Kemerovo region killed 67 people. It was reported that the accident occurred during a shift change at the longwall. The main reason was named the human factor: the combine operator crushed a miner's self-rescuer (personal protective equipment against toxic combustion products), which provoked an explosion of methane gas unexpectedly appearing in the bottomhole, followed by an explosion of coal dust.

A week before the explosion, a gas explosion occurred in the mine, which resulted in five workers being burned. However, the operation of the mine was not stopped. Experts note that none of the management of the mine was punished following the results of the investigation. Over the next ten years, the accident in Novokuznetsk remained the largest disaster in Kuzbass.

August 12, 2000 - the sinking of the Kursk nuclear submarine

During the naval exercises of the Russian fleet in the Barents Sea, the nuclear submarine K-141 "Kursk" with cruise missiles sank. According to the official version, a torpedo explosion occurred on the submarine, which was launched in May 1994, due to a leak of fuel components. The fire that broke out two minutes after the first explosion detonated the torpedoes in the first compartment of the boat.

The second explosion led to even more significant destruction. As a result, all 118 crew members were killed. As a result of the operation of raising the submarine, completed a year later, 115 bodies of the dead sailors were found and buried. The Kursk was considered the best submarine in the Northern Fleet. Among other versions of the death of the Kursk, it was argued that it could have been torpedoed by an American submarine.

July 4, 2001 - Tu-154 crash in Irkutsk

The plane of Vladivostok Air, flying on the route Yekaterinburg-Irkutsk, crashed while landing. As a result of the tragedy, 144 people died. In the conclusion of the state commission, erroneous actions of the crew were named as the cause of the disaster. During the landing maneuver, speed was lost, after which the commander lost the ability to control the aircraft

Five years later, on July 9, 2006, while landing at the same airport in Irkutsk, the Siberia Airlines plane failed to stop on the runway, rolled out of it and crashed into a garage complex. The investigation identified the aircraft's engine problems due to crew error. Of the 203 people on board, 124 people died.

November 24, 2003 - fire in the RUDN University hostel

A fire in one of the dormitories of the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia broke out at night, when most of the students were asleep. The source of the fire was a room that was empty at the time of the fire. The fire spread over four floors. Students and employees of the university, jumping out of the windows on these floors, were seriously injured, some were smashed to death. The fire killed 44 people, mostly foreign students, about 180 people were hospitalized with burns and injuries. The court found six people guilty of the fire, including the vice-rector for administrative and economic activities of the university and the chief engineer of the university, as well as the inspector of the State Fire Inspection of the South-Western Administrative District of Moscow, who received the most severe punishment - two years in prison in a penal colony.

February 14, 2004 - collapse of the roof of the Transvaal water park

As a result of the collapse of the roof of a sports and entertainment complex in the south-west of Moscow, 28 people died, including eight children, and about 200 more people received injuries of varying severity. At the time of the accident, the water park, opened in June 2002, was, according to various sources, from 400 to a thousand people, many of whom were celebrating Valentine's Day.

Among the main versions of the collapse, which were considered by the investigation, there were violations in the design and construction of the building, as well as its improper operation. The capital's prosecutor's office concluded that the chief designer of the water park project, Nodar Kancheli, was guilty, but then dropped the amnesty case.

February 23, 2006 - collapse of the roof of the Basmanny market

Early in the morning in Moscow, the roof of the Basmanny Market collapsed on an area of ​​about 2,000 square meters. meters. A total of 66 people died, dozens of people were removed from the wreckage alive. Two months after the disaster, the Moscow government commission ruled that the incident was the result of systematic improper operation of the building throughout its entire service life.

The designer of the market floor was Nodar Kancheli, the designer of Transvaal Park, whose roof collapsed two years earlier. The commission found that the roof of the market collapsed due to the breakage of one of the cable-cables on which it was held. And the cliff itself was the result of several reasons, among which was the corrosion of the cable and the unplanned reconstruction of the building.

March 19, 2007 - methane explosion at the Ulyanovskaya mine

The accident at the Ulyanovskaya mine in the Kemerovo region killed 110 people. 93 miners were rescued. The Russian Federal Service for Environmental, Technological and Nuclear Supervision announced that "gross violations of safety rules" had been committed at the Ulyanovskaya mine.

The governor of the region, Aman Tuleyev, said that on the day of the accident, equipment was installed at the mine to detect and localize gas leaks. Almost the entire management of the mine went underground to test the operation of the system and died in the explosion. Three years later, the investigative committee at the prosecutor's office, after conducting an additional investigation, opened another criminal case on the fact of the accident at Ulyanovskaya. Accidents with such a number of victims have never happened before in the mines of the USSR and Russia.

September 14, 2008 - Boeing 737 plane crash in Perm

The aircraft of the Aeroflot-Nord company, making a flight on the route Moscow-Perm, crashed while landing. As a result of the collision with the ground, all people on board were killed - 88 people, including 7 children. Among the dead was the adviser to the president, the hero of Russia, Colonel-General Gennady Troshev.

This disaster was the first for a Boeing 737 aircraft in Russia. The systemic cause of the accident was called "insufficient level of organization of flight and technical operation of Boeing 737 aircraft in the airline." In addition, according to the results of the forensic examination, it was established that there was ethyl alcohol in the body of the ship's commander before his death.

August 17, 2009 - an accident at the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station

The largest hydroelectric power station in Russia and the sixth in the world - Sayano-Shushenskaya - was shut down on August 17 when water poured into the turbine room. Three out of ten generating units were completely destroyed, while the rest were damaged.

Reconstruction work on the Yenisei hydropower plant is expected to take several years and, at best, will be completed in 2014. The largest accident in the history of the Russian and Soviet hydropower industry resulted in the death of 75 people. The commission of the Russian State Duma, which was investigating the causes of the accident at the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station, named about 20 plant workers who, in its opinion, were involved in the tragedy.

The deputies recommended dismissing, among others, the general director of the hydroelectric power station Nikolai Nevolko and chief engineer Andrei Mitrofanov. In December 2010, the former director of the Nevolko hydroelectric power station was charged with "violation of safety regulations and other labor protection rules, which resulted in the death of two or more persons."

December 5, 2009 - fire in the Lame Horse club

The largest fire in the history of post-Soviet Russia in terms of the number of victims occurred in the Perm nightclub Lame Horse. According to investigators, it began during a pyrotechnic show, when sparks hit the ceiling made of dry wooden rods and ignited. A crush immediately began in the club, due to which not everyone managed to get out of the cramped premises.

The fire in the "Lame Horse" resulted in the death of 156 people, several dozen people received burns of varying degrees. In connection with the incident, a number of officials and officials of the fire supervision were dismissed, and the government of the Perm Territory in full force resigned. In June 2011, Spanish law enforcement agencies extradited Konstantin Mrykhin to their Russian colleagues, whom the investigation calls the co-founder of the club. In addition to him, eight more people are involved in the case.

May 9, 2010 - an accident at the Raspadskaya mine

At one of the largest coal mines in the world, located in the Kemerovo region, two methane explosions occurred with a difference of several hours, as a result of which 91 people died. In total, about 360 miners were trapped underground, most of the miners were rescued.

In December 2010, 15 people who were in the mine at the time of the accident and were listed as missing were declared dead by a court decision. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said that Rostekhnadzor bodies have repeatedly made claims about the state of equipment at Raspadskaya, but the management of the mine did not react to them in any way.

The director of the mine, Igor Volkov, who was charged with violating safety rules, has resigned. The management of Raspadskaya estimated its damage at 8.6 billion rubles.

July 10, 2011 - the sinking of the motor ship "Bulgaria" on the Volga

The two-deck diesel-electric ship "Bulgaria", which was sailing from the city of Bolgar to Kazan, sank three kilometers from the coast. One of the factors that presumably led to the disaster is the congestion of the ship. According to some reports, after the alteration, the vessel was designed to carry 140 passengers. However, many more tickets were sold for the 10 July river cruise. A quarter of those on board were children.

By the morning of July 14, the bodies of 105 victims of the crash were found, the fate of another 24 remains unknown. 79 passengers and crew members escaped. In connection with the death of "Bulgaria", the Vasilievsky court of Kazan has already arrested two people who are suspected of "providing services that do not meet safety requirements" - Svetlana Inyakina, general director of the company "ArgoRechTour", which was the sub-lessee of the motor ship "Bulgaria", and Yakov Ivashov, senior expert of the Kama branch of the Russian River Register.

March 13 marks the 56th anniversary of the Kurenev tragedy, when thousands of Kievites died due to the negligence of officials

This tragedy could have been avoided, but in high offices they had their own opinion on all this. The "foundation" of the Kurenev catastrophe was laid back in the early 50s of the last century. Then the city leaders decided that the waste from brick production could be dumped near Babi Yar. A huge natural reservoir for the slurry was blocked by a dam, which did not let all the liquid mass down to Kurenevka.

For ten years, so much pulp was poured there that the dam literally cracked from the load. Rumor has it that active people from Kiev went to an appointment with the then mayor, or, more simply, the mayor of Kiev Alexei Davydov, who repeatedly warned that in some places swamp liquid seeped through the dam. But Davydov did not want to listen to anything.

And from the very morning on March 13, 1961, the dam burst. A stream of mud 14 meters high flowed down to the current Kirillovskaya street. The Spartak stadium was completely flooded. The tram depot, which was located nearby, was also flooded. The swamp mass covered cars and public transport. The man-made disaster actually destroyed several dozen residential buildings. According to official data from the Soviet government, 150 people died as a result of the tragedy. And even then, these data were initially so classified that the reports on the tragedy did not even mention the victims. In total, according to the estimates of the well-known metropolitan historian Alexander Anisimov, who unfortunately has already died, the Kurenev tragedy claimed the lives of at least one and a half thousand Kievites.

The Soviet government has always had the habit of classifying data on disasters, which were the result of the incompetence of officials. On the day of the tragedy on Kurenevka in Kiev, long-distance and international communications were turned off. It was rumored that a few months later, all the letters that the people of Kiev sent from the capital were re-read by the competent authorities in order to prevent leakage of information about the tragedy outside Kiev.

Depo.Kiev decided to make a selection of man-made disasters that occurred during the Soviet era and which were ordered to remain silent.

5th place - plane to Osorki

Few people know about this case either. On June 2, 1976, a real tragedy could have occurred over Kiev. On that day, a passenger plane YAK-40, performing a regular flight, took off from Kaunas, Lithuania to Kiev.

When the plane had already entered the air territory of the capital of Ukraine and the pilots decided to lower the altitude, because they had to land at the Zhulyany airport, suddenly several engines of the plane failed. It is interesting that the pilots were not taken aback and decided to land the plane on the flood meadows of the capital's Osokorki. This operation was successful. Moreover, during the emergency landing, none of the crew members and passengers were injured.

Of course, the information about the unsuccessful flight of the plane was classified, because the leadership of the Soviet Union lived according to the principle that the population should think that there were no catastrophes and misfortunes in the country at all. However, the residents of Osokorki, where the dachas of the Kievites were already then, nevertheless "sniffed out" about the story with the plane. Therefore, many Kievites learned that under some circumstances a passenger plane could fall on the city.

4th place - a nuclear explosion in the Kharkiv region

Not all Ukrainians know that there was a nuclear explosion on the territory of our state. This happened back in 1972. According to some reports, the power of a nuclear explosion was only three times less than that of a bomb that was dropped on Japanese Hiroshima in 1945.

In the early 70s of the last century, a very large gas field was found in the Kharkiv region. A few years later, gas was produced here in full. Once, a fire broke out on one of the drilling rigs at a depth of more than 20 meters. Subsequently, the hellish torch was already beating upwards for several tens of meters. The gas began to poison everything around. They could not extinguish the pillar of fire with anything, and then the scientists decided to arrange an underground nuclear explosion. According to calculations, the explosion was supposed to move the ground and thus close the hellish flame. Such a natural "filling" from the soil.

A planned underground nuclear explosion was carried out on the morning of July 9, 1972. Eyewitnesses of those events recall that after the explosion, stones mixed with mud began to fly out of the ground. For a while, the pillar of fire disappeared, but very quickly began to "beat" with renewed vigor. And only almost a year later it was possible to eliminate the column of fire that came out of the drilling rig. We did it by pouring concrete under high pressure. Therefore, the nuclear explosion did not do its job and was carried out in vain.

Radiation nevertheless came to the surface, although scientists and officials assured that everything would remain underground. According to some reports, the radioactive cloud went to the Kiev and Chernigov regions. There were even rumors that the country's top leadership immediately after that refused to eat food produced in Kiev, and therefore food for the party representatives was brought from other regions. Residents of the surrounding settlements almost immediately returned to their usual life, because no one told them about the consequences of an underground nuclear explosion. All information about this man-made disaster was, of course, classified. How many people have died from radiation exposure over the years is also unknown.

3rd place - nuclear explosion in Donbass

The Soviet leadership, even after a failed nuclear experiment in the Kharkiv region in 1972, continued to "produce" nuclear explosions for so-called peaceful purposes. In 1979, another such explosion was carried out near Yenakiyevo, Donetsk region. At that time, the local Yunkom mine was experiencing frequent methane emissions, which threatened the lives of miners. The scientists decided that a powerful explosion in the rocks would break the so-called connection between coal seams and methane, and this would make it possible to make coal seams safe for miners.

However, when it came to the power of the explosion, then opinions were divided. Some experts were sure that a small nuclear explosion would not lead to anything and methane would not "separate" from coal. But if the explosion is made powerful, then it will already threaten the security of the whole region. Therefore, they agreed that the power of a nuclear explosion should be at a level of 0.3 kilotons in TNT equivalent, which is 50-60 times less than the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

On September 16, 1979, an underground nuclear explosion was made. Rumor has it that after him the earth around the mine literally trembled. Interestingly, before the nuclear explosion, the local population seemed to be reassured that, they say, civil defense exercises would be held, and therefore people do not need to worry if they hear a powerful explosion.

The authorities then announced a positive result from a nuclear explosion in the mine. It seems that after that, methane emissions really decreased. But there was another thought, which was that methane emissions did decrease, but not on the scale that scientists wanted. Therefore, the experiment with an underground nuclear explosion did not live up to expectations. Again, there was no official record of an increase in radiation levels in the mine and on the surface. But where did this radiation go? Although the media have repeatedly written that after 1979, residents of the Yenakiyevo district began to get sick and die more often from symptoms similar to those that the liquidators of the Chernobyl disaster received.

2nd place - explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant

The country's top leadership knew about the consequences of radiation pollution around Pripyat and in the capital of Ukraine. However, no one told people about this from official sources. Only a few days after the explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, a small note about a "small" accident at the nuclear power plant appeared in the newspapers. Of course, the party said that there was nothing to be afraid of.

And already when the Western countries began to monitor the radiation flow from the USSR, the Soviet leaders had no place to go and began to tell a little about the consequences of the man-made disaster. Although the Kievites were “driven” to the May 1 parade. The level of radiation in Kiev was already going through the roof, and the people of Kiev, suspecting nothing, marched in columns along Khreshchatyk.

It seems that the then Secretary General Mikhail Gorbachev ordered the leader of Soviet Ukraine, Vladimir Shcherbitsky, not to sow panic and hold a festive parade under any conditions. What doses of radiation then received by the people of Kiev, who came to the parade, one can only guess.

1st place - Totsk military exercises

This tragedy did not take place in Ukraine, but it clearly shows that for the Soviet regime, human lives were absolutely nothing and no one considered them. Totsk exercises took place in September 1954 in the Orenburg region. About 45 thousand soldiers took part in them. The main goal of the exercise: to see how the Soviet troops are ready to break through the enemy's defenses using nuclear weapons during a possible Third World War. But in reality, the Soviet leadership just wanted to check how the military would conduct an offensive after the atomic explosion.

On the morning of September 14, 1954, a Tu-4 plane dropped an atomic bomb with a capacity of 40 kilotons from a height of 8 thousand meters, which is almost three times more than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

At an altitude of 350 meters from the ground, the bomb exploded. The explosion was such that it all resembled the end of the world. Almost immediately after that, the military was sent to the epicenter of the explosion.

Here the radiation level was 50 Roentgens per hour, which really threatened the health of people. The planes that were involved in the military exercises were forced to cross the so-called leg of the atomic mushroom formed after the atomic explosion. Simply put, all the military were ordinary experimental subjects on which the consequences of radiation contamination of a person were studied. Interestingly, according to some reports, before the Totsk exercises, the soldiers who took part in them were told that they should be grateful that the party chose them.

Of course, information about the consequences of an atomic explosion was completely hushed up in the USSR. And according to the researchers, after this inhuman test, tumors, as well as blood diseases, began to be detected more often in residents of neighboring settlements. Also, various mutations were observed in human organisms, and infant mortality increased several times. According to some reports, about 10 thousand civilians suffered from the Totsk exercises.

The Kurenev tragedy took place in Kiev on March 13, 1961. On December 2, 1952, it was decided to create a landfill from construction waste in the notorious place of Babi Yar. This place was blocked by a dam, which protected the Kurenevsky district from the waste discharged from brick factories. On March 13, the dam broke, and a 14-meter high mud wave rushed down Teligi Street. The stream was powerful and washed away everything in its path: cars, trams, buildings.

Although the flood lasted only an hour and a half, during this time, a wave of waste managed to claim the lives of hundreds of people and cause catastrophic damage to the entire city. It was not possible to establish the exact number of victims, but this figure is close to 1.5 thousand people. In addition, about 90 buildings were destroyed, about 60 of which were residential.

The news of the disaster reached the country's population only on March 16, and on the day of the tragedy, the authorities decided not to advertise the incident. For this, international and long-distance communications were disabled throughout Kiev. Later, the expert commission made a decision on the causes of this accident, they named "errors in the design of the dumps and dams."

Radiation accident at the Krasnoye Sormovo plant

The radiation accident at the Krasnoye Sormovo plant, which was located in Nizhny Novgorod, occurred on January 18, 1970. The tragedy occurred during the construction of the K-320 nuclear submarine, which was part of the Skat project. When the boat was on the slipway, the reactor suddenly turned on, which worked for 15 seconds at its maximum speed. As a result, radiation contamination of the entire mechanical assembly shop took place.

At the time of the reactor operation, there were about 1000 people working at the plant in the room. Unaware of the infection, many went home that day without the necessary medical attention and decontamination treatment. Three of the six victims taken to a hospital in Moscow died from radiation sickness. It was decided not to publicize this incident, and from everyone who survived, non-disclosure subscriptions were taken for 25 years. And only the next day after the accident, workers began to process. The liquidation of the consequences of the accident lasted until April 24, 1970, more than a thousand workers of the plant were involved in these works.

Chernobyl disaster

The Chernobyl disaster took place on April 26, 1986 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The reactor was completely destroyed by the explosion, and a huge amount of radioactive substances were released into the environment. The accident was the largest in the history of nuclear energy. The main damaging factor in the explosion was radioactive contamination. In addition to the territories in the immediate vicinity of the explosion (30 km), the territory of Europe was affected. This happened due to the fact that the cloud formed from the explosion carried radioactive materials for many kilometers from the source. The fallout of iodine and cesium radionucleides was recorded on the territory of modern Belarus. Ukraine and the Russian Federation.

During the first three months after the accident, 31 people died, while over the next 15 years from the consequences of the accident, another 60 to 80 people died. More than 115 thousand people were evacuated from the 30-kilometer affected area. More than 600 thousand servicemen and volunteers took part in the liquidation of the accident. The course of the investigation was constantly changing. The causes of the accident have not yet been precisely determined.

Kyshtym accident

The Kyshtym accident was the first man-made disaster in the CCCR, it happened on September 29, 1957. It happened at the Mayak plant, which was located in the closed military city of Chelyabinsk - 40. The accident was named after the closest town of Kyshtym.

The reason was an explosion that took place in a special tank for radioactive waste. This container was a flat cylinder made of stainless steel. The design of the tank seemed to be reliable, and no one expected the cooling system to fail.

An explosion occurred, as a result of which about 20 million curies of radioactive substances were released into the atmosphere. About 90 percent of the radiation fell on the territory of the Mayak chemical plant itself. Fortunately. Chelyabinsk-40 was not injured. During the liquidation of the accident, 23 villages were resettled, and the houses and pets themselves were destroyed.

As a result of the explosion, not a single person was killed. However, the employees who carried out the elimination of contamination received a significant dose of radiation. About a thousand people took part in the operation. Now this zone is called the East Ural Radioactive Trail and any economic activity on this territory is prohibited.

Disaster at the Plesetsk cosmodrome

On March 18, 1980, in preparation for the launch of the Vostok 2-M carrier rocket, an explosion occurred. The incident took place at the Plesetsk cosmodrome. This accident led to a large number of human casualties: only in the immediate vicinity of the rocket at the time of the explosion there were 141 people. 44 people died in the fire, the rest received burns of varying severity and were taken to the hospital, subsequently four of them died.

That fact led to the disaster; that in the manufacture of filters, hydrogen peroxide was used as catalytic materials. It was only thanks to the courage of the participants in this accident that many people were removed from the fire. The liquidation of the disaster lasted for three days.

In the future, scientists abandoned the use of hydrogen peroxide as a catalyst, which made it possible to avoid such incidents.

April 18 in the American city of West (Texas). From 5 to 15 people were killed, about 160 people were injured. In total, dozens of houses were destroyed. Due to the explosion in the area, the power supply has been disrupted.

On August 25, on the territory of the largest oil refinery in Venezuela Paraguana Refining Center. The ignition of propane vapors occurred in the oil storage area. Later, two tanks ignited. The fire spread to the nearby barracks, pipelines and cars parked nearby. The third oil tank was engulfed in fire on the night of 28 August. It was possible to completely extinguish the flame only in the afternoon of August 28. As a result of the disaster, 42 people were killed and 150 were injured.

February 28 at a chemical plant in the Chinese province of Hebei, which killed 25 people. An explosion occurred in a nitroguanidine production workshop at the Hebei Keer chemical plant in Zhaoxian County, Shijiazhuang City.

12-th of September at the Centraco radioactive material processing facility in Marcoule, France. One person died, four were injured. The incident occurred in a furnace for transporting metal waste that was weakly irradiated at nuclear facilities. No radiation leaks were recorded.

On August 9, 320 kilometers west of Tokyo, on the island of Honshu, an accident occurred at the Mihama nuclear power plant. A super-powerful release of incandescent steam (about 200 degrees Celsius) occurred in the turbine of the third reactor. All nearby employees received severe burns. At the time of the accident, about 200 people were in the building where the third reactor is located. Four people were killed and another 18 employees were injured.

On November 13, off the coast of Spain, the oil tanker Prestige was caught in a severe storm, in the holds of which there were more than 77 thousand tons of high-sulfur fuel oil. As a result of the storm, a crack with a length of about 50 meters formed in the ship's hull. On November 19, the tanker broke in half and sank. As a result of the disaster, 64 thousand tons of fuel oil got into the sea.

The complete clean-up of the water area cost $ 12 billion, but it is impossible to fully assess the damage to the ecosystem.

On September 21, an explosion occurred at the AZF chemical plant in Toulouse (France), the consequences of which are considered one of the largest man-made disasters. Exploded 300 tons of ammonium nitrate, which were in the warehouse of finished products. According to the official version, the blame for the disaster was assigned to the management of the plant, which did not ensure the safe storage of the explosive substance.

As a result of the emergency, 30 people died, the total number of injured exceeded 3.5 thousand, thousands of residential buildings and many institutions were destroyed or seriously damaged, including 79 schools, 11 lyceums, 26 colleges, two universities, 184 kindergartens, 27 thousand apartments, 40 thousand people were left homeless, in fact, 134 enterprises stopped their activities. The authorities and insurance companies received 100 thousand claims for damages. The total amount of damage was three billion euros.

In July in Brazil, a disaster at the Petrobras refinery spilled over a million gallons of oil into the Iguazu River. The resulting slick moved downstream, threatening to poison the drinking water for several cities at once. The liquidators of the accident built several barriers, but they managed to stop the oil only at the fifth. One part of the oil was collected from the surface of the water, while the other left through specially built diversion channels.

Petrobras paid $ 56 million in fines to the state budget and $ 30 million to the state budget.

The material was prepared on the basis of information from RIA Novosti and open sources

The modern development of technology provides us with a huge number of new opportunities. Unfortunately, nothing is free in this world, because the use of certain methods of obtaining energy or resources, as well as improving production, is fraught with potential danger.

As a rule, the largest man-made disasters in the world are associated with human carelessness, non-observance of safety rules, but some of them are associated with the testing of new types of weapons.

Video: TOP man-made disasters in the world

Poison cloud in Seveso

The Italian town of Seveso once had seventeen thousand inhabitants. It was located in the valley of the Po River, at the foot of the hills, surrounded by green forests and fields. The picturesque area attracted a large number of tourists from Milan. However, the main enterprise was a chemical plant, which employed most of the inhabitants.

On June 10, 1976, an explosion occurred at the plant, which was accompanied by a powerful release into the atmosphere of one of the most terrible poisons known to man - dioxin. The chemical formed a cloud that hung over the city, and over time, the poison began to descend on gardens and residential buildings.

People who inhaled the poison experienced symptoms such as bouts of nausea, the development of eye diseases with impaired vision. Now Seveso is a ghost town, in which no one has lived for many years, it is called the Italian Hiroshima. It took many years to disinfect the soil. The consequences of the release of chemicals were aggravated by the fact that the owners of the plant did not immediately tell the doctors the reason for the deterioration in the well-being of the residents of the city.

The cause of the accident was non-observance of the temperature regime - the temperature of the chemical reaction was overestimated, since the instructions for cooling were not followed.

Accident on Three Mile Island

On March 28, 1979, one of the largest man-made disasters in the world and in the history of nuclear power took place. The Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant (Three Mile Island) was located on the Saskahuana River near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

On the night of March 27-28, the second power unit operated at 97% capacity. Shortly before the accident, all systems were operating normally. However, two problems were known to exist:

• A coolant was constantly flowing through the gate of one of the pressure compensator valves. Because of this, the temperature in the waste pipeline was above normal, and the excess of the medium had to be drained every eight hours.
• The ion exchange resin discharge line was blocked and workers tried to blow it out with water and compressed air.

These problems resulted in operators being faced with a sudden shutdown of the reactor, with two deviations from the standard scenario followed by the personnel.

Due to the destruction of the fuel element cladding, radioactive materials were released, namely, xenon-133 and iodine-131 gases. Due to the fact that the filter elements were not changed in time, a large amount of radioactive gases entered the atmosphere.

Despite the fact that serious human casualties were avoided, this accident forced to revise the safety standards for the operation of nuclear facilities.

Love Canal incident

In the vicinity of Niagara Falls, New York, there was a settlement called Love Canal. It was originally built as the "City of Dreams" - a place where the most environmentally friendly materials were to be used, this is how the entrepreneur William Love represented it.

Unfortunately, due to the Great Depression, construction had to be stopped, and instead of a beautiful city for many years there were only a couple of houses and a giant pit that was used to dump chemical waste. In 1953, this dump was simply buried with earth and forgotten about it. After a while, it was decided to roll up the area under asphalt and start building a new residential area.

The first children went to the district school in 1957, and their parents, not even suspecting what was under their feet, were surprised at the strange puddles that arose near the houses. In 1976, analyzes of the water showed a huge content of benzene, dioxins and other toxic substances. Children with hydrocephalus began to be born, and cases of cancer and asthma increased. About 60% of the district residents had a congenital defect.

Due to the fact that this area was intended for poor people, most of the residents could not leave, even after they realized the dangers of living on this land. Only a few years later, with the help of the involvement of the media, scientists and public figures, it was possible to draw the attention of the US government to this problem. Now the Love Canal is a sign city, still recalling one of the most terrible man-made disasters in the world.

Explosion at the AZF plant in Toulouse

On September 21, 2001, a monstrous explosion took place in Toulouse, which caused the death of thirty people and the injury of thousands of people, the destruction of a huge number of buildings and structures.

Due to a still unknown reason, three hundred tons of ammonium nitrate, which was in a hangar belonging to the AZF chemical plant, detonated. A crater with a diameter of up to fifty meters and a depth of about five meters remained at the site of the explosion.

Production facilities were seriously damaged, several thousand people were injured of varying severity. Over the next eleven years, AZF was forced to pay two billion euros to those affected.

The power of the explosion, the damage caused and the huge number of victims make this incident one of the most terrible man-made disasters in the world.

Bhopal chemical disaster

On December 3, 1984, one of the most famous man-made disasters occurred - the Bhopal tragedy. More than eighteen thousand people died because of the accident at the plant of the American company "Union Carbide".

The cause of this tragedy has not yet been officially established. There are many different versions, including safety violations, negligence and targeted sabotage. Nevertheless, it was precisely established that the company's management put pressure on the employees of the plant, forcing them to reduce costs, including through security measures, which could not but affect the likelihood of this disaster.

Disaster of the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station

The accident at the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station is undoubtedly one of the largest technical disasters in the world. This incident is considered the largest incident in the history of hydropower and its consequences affected not only the social and economic situation in the region, but also the ecology of the water area adjacent to the power plant.

As a result of a thorough investigation, it was established that the accident occurred as a result of repeated additional loading on the hydraulic unit, which resulted in fatigue damage to the attachment points. The additional load caused the destruction of the studs that held the turbine cover, as a result of which the water supply path of the hydraulic unit was depressurized.

The parliamentary commission, in its final report, also noted such factors as abuse of office by the plant's management, low professionalism and responsibility of employees.

In addition to the death of seventy-five people, the accident caused oil to enter the Yenisei from the baths of the hydraulic units, which led to the appearance of a slick stretching for one hundred and thirty kilometers. The amount of environmental damage is estimated at 63 million rubles.

Illness in Minamata

Minamata Disease refers to a syndrome that causes poisoning with methylmercury and other organic mercury compounds. The disease was first discovered in Minamata City, Kumamoto Prefecture in 1956.

Its symptoms:

• Paresthesia in the limbs;
• Motility disorders;
• Deterioration of speech;
• Weakening of hearing and vision;
• Consciousness disturbances;
• Paralysis.

Also, this disease is fatal.

Doctors first encountered this disease in April 1956, when they received a five-year-old girl with symptoms that indicated an unknown nervous illness. Gradually, anomalies in animal behavior began to be detected, as well as similar symptoms among residents of fishing villages. The disease claimed the lives of fourteen people.

Further investigation revealed that the cause of the pathologies was severe methylmercury contamination of the seafood that the victims ate. After that, a chemical analysis of the water was carried out, which made it possible to detect an increased content of mercury, lead, thallium, selenium, and arsenic. All of these metals were released into the water by Chisso's continuous release of mercury into the water. An important point is that microorganisms that lived at the bottom of the sea processed mercury, converting it into methylmercury, which is more toxic and accumulates in the body. This incident is one of the largest man-made disasters in the world.

The Chernobyl accident

The events that took place on April 26, 1986 are rightfully considered the largest man-made disaster in the world, and one of the most significant events in the history of nuclear energy.

Currently, there are many versions of the Chernobyl disaster, which appeared as a result of investigations carried out by the state commission of the USSR in 1986 and 1991, the advisory group INSAG.

The most likely factors contributing to the accident at a nuclear power plant are:

• NPP design flaws;
• Silence of the seriousness of the situation in the first days of the incident;
• The desire of employees to conduct an experiment "at any cost";
• Decommissioning of serviceable technological protections that could shut down the reactor in time.

Due to the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, 134 employees and members of the rescue teams who were at the station at the time of the explosion died from radiation sickness. In addition, the powerful release of radiation has led to the development of a huge number of cases of cancer, in particular thyroid cancer. Also, many pathologies have been recorded in newborns.

About five million hectares of land were withdrawn from agricultural use, and an exclusion zone with a radius of thirty kilometers was created around the power plant. Hundreds of small settlements had to be buried, as well as the city of Pripyat.

In addition, the consequences of the accident seriously affected the ecological situation in the area. The highest concentration of cesium-137 was found in the upper soil layer, from which it enters fungi and plants, through which contamination is transmitted to birds and animals. Radioactive fallout fell in remote areas such as Mordovia, Chuvashia and the Leningrad region.

Fukushima nuclear power plant accident

The disaster at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, which occurred on March 11, 2011, can hardly be called in its pure form a man-made disaster, because it was caused by a natural disaster, namely an earthquake and the tsunami caused by it. It was this that caused the failure of the power supply system, which stopped the cooling process of the reactor with the subsequent release of radioactive substances.

The lack of sufficient cooling caused a strong increase in vapor pressure, followed by discharge into the containment. In order to prevent the destruction of the sealed shell, steam had to be dumped into the atmosphere. Over time, the pressure was nevertheless released, but at the same time a large amount of hydrogen penetrated into the structure of the reactor compartment.

In addition, due to the accident, a large amount of cesium-137 and iodine-131 got into the sea water. Because of this, the radioactivity of the water increased 4385 times. The additional spread of contamination was facilitated by the fact that marine fish carried radioactive materials in themselves.

In order to disinfect the soil, it will take several more years and rather large financial investments. Already, experts estimate the cost of restoration work at over one billion dollars, and over time this amount will only grow.

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