Is it true that the Chernobyl nuclear power disaster was caused by technicians screwing around?

Where did you hear that? Spreading false rumors is how misinformation gets spread.

The Number Four RBMK reactor at the nuclear power plant at Chernobyl, Ukraine, went out of control during a test at low-power, leading to an explosion and fire that demolished the reactor building and released large amounts of radiation into the atmosphere.

@zenvelo I heard it on Christian FM radio in Alberta yesterday.(December 27/2022.) It was in the dark so I don’t know what exact station it was.

The minister said that two technicians overridden six of the warning alerts on the plant to see how long the turbines can run when the power was cut.

Maybe that was the low power test that you mentioned?

That’s why I asked Fluther, because it sounded legit and I wondered.

Thanks for looking it up.. I still wonder.

Something on a Christian radio station is as far from legit as possible. And what you describe is not an “unauthorized experiment”.

@zenvelo Oh. It was a doctor on the Bible hour.

They were not messing around. It was not an unauthorised experiment.
Either the speaker was purposefully misrepresenting the facts or lacked the intelligence to properly understand what was going on.

@Lightlyseared Thanks. So it’s bs then. Thanks.
The speaker was talking about disarming the warnings of Christ/God and church members.

No one was “screwing around” but a test of the reactor’s emergency shutdown system was carried out despite known safety issues. Some of the safety systems that were designed to prevent an accident were turned off in order to proceed with the test. I think the staff at the reactor were under pressure from their bosses to get the test done.

@flutherother Thanks. I feel less of a fool now. Also that the doctor on the Bible hour wasn’t totally off base.
That’s why I asked instead of blindly following what I hear on the radio.

It is important to note that this was a design flaw. The technicians worked as instructed.

@filmfann Thanks for the info.

Here is the timeline It’s not entirely true that it was business as usual.

According to the infor from Stanford, it had nothing to do with a test of the reactor’s emergency shutdown system. The ‘doctor’ from the bible hour was incorrect.

http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2015/ph241/seh1/

Most of the nuclear accidents we have seen you can track back to operating outside of design basis. SL-1 happened because the control crew couldn’t get a control rod to move normally so they yanked on the rope that held it. 3 Mile Island happened because there were numerous alarms that were overridden because they were deemed to be “nuisance” alarms. Chernobyl was much the same. When we put the plant into a situation it is not supposed to be in and defeat the necessary alarms and indications, we have no idea what the plant is doing and tragedy results.

HBO recently aired a miniseries called Chernobyl. It was quite good but harrowing.

Note that Chernobyl was a poorly designed reactor by a government that didn’t care about safety or it’s people. It in NO WAY should be considered representative of the western nuclear fission industry.

@Entropy True. Western reactors failed in entirely different ways.