Causes of Chernobyl Accident

It is thought that the reason for the accident is the unexperienced staff. The normal, experienced staff at the plant were planning a test on reactor four. The test was complicated but they were trained enough to perform it. The first thing working against them is that another power plant on the circuit went down, so Chernobyl was producing more power than usual to compensate. Then the day staff never got to the test. No-one ever told the night time staff not to do it, so they tried to perform the test. Things started getting our of control. They tried to use an emergency shutdown mechanism that failed. Now they had an uncontrolled nuclear reaction. Because the staff didn't have the right Geiger counters, they knew the radiation levels were high, but didn't know the true danger they were in. They stayed for about 3 days after the explosion trying to pump water into the reactor to control it. They died weeks later from radiation poisoning.