This past Tuesday, Russia had announced that there was a significant radiation spike in the Ural Mountains in which a Soviet-era nuclear plant had an accident 60 years ago. The Mayak facility in Russia once produced plutonium for Soviet nuclear weapons. In the 1957 breach, a nuclear waste storage tank exploded which created a radioactive cloud over an area of 20,000 square miles. The accident is considered to be one of the worst on record after those at Chernobyl in Ukraine in 1986 and Fukushima, Japan, in 2011. A further accident was reported at Mayak in which officials confirmed that radioactive waste had been dumped in a river near the facility. French and German scientists state that the site is a potential source for ruthenium 106 which was detected above several European countries in the air back in September, with the highest levels above Russia. Weather stations have been reporting that the ruthenium 106 levels are now up to 986 times higher than they have been in previous months. Although many Russian researches and officials state that these radioactivity levels are 20,000 times lower than the lethal level of the ruthenium isotope, many argue that areas surrounding the Ural Mountains should be evacuated until further research is conducted to determine the safety hazards of the area. Nuclear plants produce steam to convert into electricity through the process of fission in which uranium atoms are split in a nuclear reactor to provide the heat energy to produce steam. When neutrons hit other atoms, those atoms split, releasing neutrons of their own with heat. These neutrons hit other atoms, splitting them. One fission triggers the next until there is a chain reaction. When that happens, fission becomes self-sustaining. However, this plant in particular also attempted to produce weapons-grade uranium and plutonium releasing ruthenium as a byproduct, and thus the hazards of the accident are slightly different. In Mayak, a waste storage tank exploded, which released the radioactive element into the atmosphere over a stretch of 20,00 miles where it continues to remain to date.

 

The nuclear accident forced 10,000 people to evacuate from their homes and seek shelter elsewhere without any explanation as to why as much of the public was uninformed of the accident. Radiation contaminated a large portion of marine animals as well as soil and water samples. In addition, radioactive isotopes emitted by the nuclear plant affects many people living in Russia today as they are at an increased risk of developing cancer or other radioactive-related diseases. Ruthenium can form bonds with oxygen to form ruthenium tetroxide. Ruthenium tetroxide’s fumes are irritating to the skin, eyes, and respiratory tract. However, Ruthenium, in very small quantities, is also used in medicine in radiotherapy of eye tumors (malignant melanomas of the uvea).

 

 

Buttinger, Scott. “The Kyshtym Disaster.” The Kyshtym Disaster, Stanford University, 22 Feb. 2017, large.stanford.edu/courses/2017/ph241/buttinger1/.

 

Cowell, Matthew Luxmoore And Alan. “Russia, in Reversal, Confirms Radiation Spike.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 21 Nov. 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/11/21/world/europe/russia-nuclear-cloud.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fscience&action=click&contentCollection=science®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=5&pgtype=sectionfront.

-Rasman Rayyan