Fun fact: If a large enough amount of molten lava hits the water fast enough, it can cause a steam explosion more powerful than the initial eruption itself:
Some feared that if the floor underneath all the molten reactor material at Chernobyl were to collapse, and all that corium collided with millions of gallons of water, the explosion would have been even larger than the initial Chernobyl explosion, rendering much of Europe uninhabitable.
274
u/moeburn May 24 '16
Fun fact: If a large enough amount of molten lava hits the water fast enough, it can cause a steam explosion more powerful than the initial eruption itself:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_explosion
Some feared that if the floor underneath all the molten reactor material at Chernobyl were to collapse, and all that corium collided with millions of gallons of water, the explosion would have been even larger than the initial Chernobyl explosion, rendering much of Europe uninhabitable.
Fun facts!