The world has witnessed numerous technical disasters and each of them has allowed us to better prepare for future calamities. However, it is very difficult to predict exactly how an accident might occur just by looking at past disasters. Plus, it's even harder to prepare for something that has never happened before. The Chernobyl accident is an excellent example of an event that could not be completely avoided by simply looking at past disasters or even predicting this specific accident. Psychological biases, along with other contributing factors such as human factors and design flaws, made the Chernobyl accident a disaster that no one could have predicted. The series of events that occurred on April 26, 1986 at the Chernobyl power plant, located in Ukraine. , would be considered one of the worst disasters the world has ever known. This was a routine check “to determine how long the plant's steam turbines would continue to produce electricity in the event of a power outage” (Worsnop). This seems ironic, since a simple test led to such a complicated calamity. During the test, one of the turbines was shut down, along with the emergency core cooling system. For a simple test, completely turning off the emergency core cooling system may not be one of the best options. They were running the core at low power and in doing so it caused excessive xenon buildup. By reducing the flow of water to the core, the core began to heat up rapidly, causing the reactor's power to increase. Eventually, they figured they would have to remove the control rods from the reactor core as a method of emergency shutdown. However, all events leading up to this point have done the opposite of closing...... middle of paper...... energy resource. Internet. March 19, 2011. .IPPNW. Only 50 deaths caused by Chernobyl? 20 years after Chernobyl – The continuing health effects. April 6, 2006. The web. March 19, 2011. .Meshkati, Najmedin. “Human factors in large-scale technological system accidents: Three Mile Island, Bhopal, Chernobyl.” Industrial Crisis Quarterly 5 (1991): 131-54. Personal web pages. Internet. March 19, 2011. "Nuclear Disasters: Chernobyl, Three Mile Island - CNN IReport." CNN Report I. Internet. March 19, 2011. “What are the social and economic costs of the Chernobyl accident? » Green Facts. Internet. March 19. 2011. .