Before the Chernobyl accident very little was known about the Chernobyl type reactor, the RBMK. One of the few publications before 1986, in the December 1983 issue of the German nuclear industry monthly 'atomwirtschaft' was written by H. Born from one of the main German utilities VEW. He writes: "For operational safety, the nuclear power plants (VVER and RBMK) are equipped with three parallel safety systems. The power plants are designed to withstand natural disasters (hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, etc.) and to withstand aircraft crash and blasts from outside. The safety is increased by the possibility in Russia to select a site far away from bigger towns." ( page 647: "Zur Betriebssicherheit sind die Kraftwerke (VVER and RBMK) mit drei parallel arbeitenden Sicherheitsysteme ausgeruested. Die Kraftwerke sing gegen Naturkatastrophen (Orkane, Ueberschwemmungen, Erdbeben, etc) und gegen Flugzeugabsturz und Druckwellen von aussen ausgelegt. Die Sicherheit wird noch durch die in Russland moegliche Standortauswahl, KKW in gewisser Entfernung van groesseren Ortschaften zu erstellen, erhoeht."

In the June 1983 issue of the IAEA-bulletin, Mr. B. Semenov, Deputy Director General, Head of IAEA Department of Nuclear Energy and Safety, sums up "many factors favoring the channel-type graphite-uranium boiling- water reactors" and concludes: "The design feature of having more than 1000 individual primary circuits increasing the safety of the reactor system - a serious loss-of-coolant accident is practically impossible." (page 51)