Abstract
The full story of the Chernobyl disaster is yet to be disclosed. The initial cause of the accident was a very unlikely violation of the operating procedure and conditions by the plant personnel which showed the design faults of the reactor and the control and protection system rods. The main or root cause of the accident was the inadequate design of the user-machine interaction. Many people involved with the reliability and safety of Nuclear Power Plants now believe that even if the operators had acted correctly their actions would have resulted in the explosion. The main lesson from the Chernobyl accident is that the Nuclear Age calls for a new culture and and can certainly not tolerate ignorance. Chernobyl is a severe warning of what can happen if people disregard the necessity of including ergonomics in the process of designing and operating complex technical facilities.
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