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A test was conceived and conducted that attempted to solve the problem of providing adequate cooling following a shutdown. The problem was that the emergency generators took too long to come up to full power, so the concept was that the still spinning turbine, on its deceleration, would provide enough electrical power to run the emergency core cooling system.

Several designs were attempted and failed. During the last fatal attempt, there was a loss of coolant accident (LOCA) coupled with a super prompt criticality that caused the core to explode. Since the core was moderated with graphite, and graphite is flammable, the debris and nuclear materials continued to burn. Since there was no primary or secondary containment, the explosion blasted the core all over the landscape.

It is believed that a sequence of several errors led to the accident, but most of the people on site died as a result of the accident, so there is not a lot of certainty as to what exactly transpired.

For more information, including a detailed account of the accident, some of which has been pieced together by analysis, please see the Related Link below.

Note: The explosion was a Steam explosion in response to the LOCA, not a Nuclear explosion.

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