A question for budding (or old ) nuclear physics engineers?

Question

Recently I heard a statement at my workplace about the chernoble accident. "If Chernoble had exploaded like an atomic bomb most of europe would have been blown on the face of the planet" The largest bomb ever detonated by any government was the Tsara Bomba (a 50mt ) airburst test and by any stretch of the imagination the damage was way more than I would have guessed. (http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Russia/TsarBomba.html)

My question is how big of a blast would it have been.

note: I know that it wouldnt have exploaded under any conditions like an atomic bomb.

Answer 1

That link did not work, but a nuclear reactor as you rightly mentioned cannot explode like a bomb. However, if it was really contained in a strong containment and then that gives way suddenly, a powerful blast will occur and that would cause great destruction, and the accompanying release of radiation would have spread much further.

Questions like how many megatons of explosive are required to wipe a nation or a continent off the face of earth are hypothetical. A single explosion however powerful is not as effective as a group of explosions spread over the area.

Answer 2

A nuclear plant uses tons (100-200) of uranium in order to produce energy.
The atomic bomb that was detonated over Nagasaki, Japan had a yield of about 21 kt. This bomb had 6.2 kg of plutonium as fissionable material.
Imagine now an atomic bomb with 100.000 kg of fissionable material.
Disaster!!!!

Answer 3

Whatever the outcome of your situation is, do put mix bleach and ammonia.