In fact, after a few days, the Soviets seemed to recognize that nuclear safety is a matter of international concern, and became quite open in their search for cooperation. The radiation that was released spread through Eastern Europe (the world first learned of it through Swedish observations), bringing with it both official and unofficial protests that the Soviet Union had made no announcement of the radiation release until they were, in effect, caught. There was no containment, in the traditional American sense, so the roof of the building was blown out, an unprecedented amount of radioactivity was released to the biosphere, more » and a graphite fire was ignited, which burned for days. There was an uncontrolled nuclear excursion, release of a large amount of energy, possibly comparable to hundreds of pounds of TNT, blowing the top off the reactor. In the early morning of April 26, 1986, as the culmination of an almost incredible series of errors that began 24 hours earlier, Unit 4 of the Chernobyl nuclear complex, a so-called RBMK-1000 reactor, suffered the worst accident in the history of commercial nuclear power. However, it does not clearly state whether the costs for a precautionary evacuation are covered when a release appears imminent but does not actually occur. The act covers all off-site accident damages resulting from the release of radioactive material. The financial consequences more » of a catastrophic accident at 115 of 119 plants could far exceed the liability limit. GAO believes that the act's indemnity authority should be extended and that its liability protection is too low to provide reasonable compensation for the worst nuclear plant accident. The indemnity provisions of the act, which allow the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Department of Energy to enter into new indemnity agreements and set the liability limits, expire in August 1987. It establishes a source of funds to compensate personal injury and property damage from a nuclear accident and limits the liability of private industry for such accidents.
The Price-Anderson Act encourages private industry development of nuclear energy.
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