The reactor in one of the units lost its cooling water, heat built up, and radioactive gas burst out and spread all over Europe and parts of the USSR. On the April 26, 1986, a nuclear power station at Chernobyl in the Ukraine, then part of the USSR, caused the world’s worst nuclear accident. The …
Chernobyl Nuclear Accident – Ukraine – April 26, 1986 Read More »
Yellowstone is the oldest and perhaps most famous national park in the world. Established in 1872, it covers over two million acres of Wyoming and spreads into neighboring Idaho and Montana. Over the years it has gradually become valued not simply as a vast outdoor play area but also as a national treasure – it …
Once a Chinese state enterprise, the Qinghe Special Steel Corporation had been transferred to the private sector before its plant in Tielng became the scene of a terrible accident in April 2007 – the worst to befall the modern Chinese steel industry. A large overhead ladle, that carried molten steel from a blast furnace, separated …
Qinghe Special Steel Corporation Disaster – 2007 Read More »
Black gold has proved both a boon and a curse to the West African republic of Nigeria. The world’s eighth most populous country is a major oil producer, has membership of OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) and possesses huge proven reserves. However, constant agitation by the population of the oil-producing Niger Delta – …
Silesia is Poland’s industrial heartland and the region’s coal mines – employing more people than any other sector and fueling 90 per cent of the country’s electricity generation – are vital to the national economy. But it’s a dangerous business, with miners operating in difficult conditions, often exacerbated by lack of investment following the collapse …
Anywhere in or around the Number 101 Petrochemical Plant in Jilin was definitely not the place to be on November 13 2005. For that was the day when explosions ripped through the state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation’s facility when a nitration unit malfunctioned. The sequence of powerful detonations lasted for an hour, shattering windows over …