The Danger of Sleep Deprivation

Late one spring night in 1986, around 1:30 a.m., the residents of Pripyat, a Ukrainian city of 50,000 people at the northern tip of the Dnieper River, were shaken from sleep by a giant explosion originating in the nuclear reactor of the nearby power plant in Chernobyl. It was an event that would forever change the course of their lives, and that of human history. Hundreds of people died, both directly and indirectly from the explosion, which is now regarded as the worst nuclear power plant catastrophe in history. Today, the Chernobyl power plant and Pripyat are completely abandoned, unsafe due to nuclear contamination. Within a 19-mile radius in every direction of the plant, the landscape is considered unfit for human life for the next 50,000 years. And the cause? Well, when the dust settled, it was a simple condition we all suffer from time to time: an error caused by a worker with too little sleep.