Comment Re:Profit over safety (Score 2) 128
Nope. Cutting corners it was.
The reactor was designed by cutting corners - enlarging a military reactor the scientists developed 20 years earlier and without a containment (too expensive and nuclear power were considered safe anyway). It was built by cutting corners - utilizing unqualified and uncaring workers, who were faking weld seams. It was operated by cutting corners - qualified people weren't employed - using former conventional power plant operators instead. The experiment ran by cutting corners - instead of waiting for a day due to reactor poisoning, the night shift manager decided to continue nevertheless.
Oh, and due to a quite similar accident on the Leningrad power plant, which happened in 1975, the reactors of RBMK type were to be modified, but not immediately, only when reactors went offline for maintenance - cutting corners again. Guess on which day the Chernobyl reactor #4 was to be shut down for maintenance?
The experiment itself was just the last straw. The actual reason for all this was a very very long string of cutting corners.