.png)
Around 900 protest against nuclear power in Helsinki on 26 April, 2011 marking the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986. (Antti Aimo-Koivisto/AFP/Getty Images)
On the 25th anniversary of the April 26, 1986, Chernobyl nuclear disaster, it is virtually impossible not to draw parallels with the current Fukushima crisis. Japanese officials, however, are trying hard to draw a clear line between the two, saying the crisis they are still trying to manage is quite different from the one that befell Ukraine, a Soviet Republic at the time.
Both accidents are the only ones to ever receive the maximum level seven on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale. But Japanese and Ukrainian officials say the Fukushima incident is not as drastic.
"It is clear that the two cases are different in nature,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told reporters, according to AFP. "Unfortunately the amount of radioactive material leaked was about one-tenth [of Chernobyl], but at least we were able to avoid explosions of the reactors.”
Edano noted that since Chernobyl, research has provided insight into how a society can deal with the after effects of a nuclear disaster.
“The Fukushima accident and Chernobyl are very different," said Denis Flory, deputy director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told the National Post. "Chernobyl had a reactor in power. It was a huge explosion, a power explosion, and then you had a huge graphite fire for a number of days.”
Chernobyl also did not have a containment system and leaked a massive amount of radiation.
The cause of the two incidents were also very different. Chernobyl’s disaster began when engineers were attempting to do a systems test. Fukushima was crippled in an unprecedented 9.0-magnitude earthquake and giant tsunami.
"The nature of these two tragedies, these two accidents, are quite different," Ukraine Ambassador to Japan Mykola Kulinich said, according to the Japan Times.
"In our case, it was an experiment that was handled by the operators of the station, but a failed experiment,” he said.Japan put into effect last week a 12.4-mile radius no-go zone around the Fukushima Daiichi plant.
The fires and leaking radioactive materials during the Chernobyl disaster forced the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people.
