Chernobyl, a word that still arouses pain and fear in the hearts of many people even after 28 years, still causes serious damage. It was the greatest nuclear disaster of all time, Chernobyl was.” . . approximately 400 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima during World War II. . .” (Walmsley “26 Years Later: Helping the Children of Chernobyl”). The disaster was not immediately considered a significant threat, and that is why so many lives were killed or destroyed. The Chernobyl Power Plant is located approximately 18.2 miles northwest of the city of Chernobyl and measures 8.2 square miles. Chernobyl was inaugurated in 1977 and it took the Soviet Union six years to build. The Soviet Union was in a hurry to take power and this motivated the construction of Chernobyl. By the 1980s, the Soviet Union had moved up the ranks in nuclear energy, ahead of the United States, England and France. The power plant had 4 reactors that provided electricity to millions of people and had the official name VI Lenin Nuclear Power Plant. The design of Chernobyl was similar to earlier models used in the United States. The VI Lenin Nuclear Power Plant used the process of fission to create energy that would then turn into electricity. The reactor used at Chernobyl was an RBMK reactor created by the Soviet Union as a breeder reactor. A breeder reactor, by definition, is a reactor that creates more fissile material than the amount of fuel of a different type of fissile material needed to power it. This type of reactor produces more than is needed to maintain the chain reaction in the fission process, and it can also produce a fissile isotope that can be used to create a nuclear weapon. Although being used as a breeder reactor was not the primary purpose of the RBMKs, they still had... middle of paper ... not the only illness, many children developed disabilities. “Figures published by UNICEF in 2010 showed that more than 20% of adolescents in Belarus suffered from disabilities and chronic diseases. Belarus absorbed 70% of the fallout from Chernobyl” (Walmsley “26 Years Later: Helping the Children of Chernobyl”). Chernobyl also influenced the nuclear community, raising safety awareness. Knowing that few of those who worked at Chernobyl had ever worked in a nuclear power plant before, and there had not been a single emergency drill at Chernobyl. This has prompted many organizations to re-evaluate other factories and their procedures. Many believed that the RBMK reactors required better safety measures, knowing that Chernobyl could ultimately have been avoided. Works Cited Brennan, Kristine. The Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Chelsea House Publishers, 2002. Print.