On April 25 and, 26 1986, the world was shaken by the greatest nuclear disaster ever witnessed. In the northern part of Ukraine, near the city of Chernobyl, reactor nº4 at a nuclear power plant exploded and burned. Reactor nº4 had a peculiar and more innovative configuration that required testing at the time. At dawn, during maintenance, flawed rector design combined with the personnel violation of the safety protocol originated the horrendous catastrophe. The workers were not able to shut down the reactor completely, causing a sudden power surge. Very hot fuel collided with the cooling water generating an explosion of steam, increasing the pressure, and giving rise to a fire. This chain of reactions led to the destruction of the reactor. A few seconds later, a second explosion occurred, what triggered it is still unknown.
Firefighters and, eventually, helicopters rushed to the site to attempt to put out the fires with the help of materials such as sand and water. They succeeded in bringing the victims (workers and some firefighters) to the hospital, evacuating the scene in about 36 hours. Two of the Chernobyl plant workers died, one of them immediately and the other at the hospital. The accident brought 28 more victims in the subsequent weeks. The reason behind it was a huge release of radioactive substances, the largest ever recorded, for about ten days. Most of the lighter released material, with the unfortunate help of the wind, was spread throughout Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, and to some extent over Scandinavia and Europe. The heaviest matter deposited close by in the shape of dust and debris.
In the following years, the population of the contaminated zones started to relocate after being previously evacuated. They were still exposed to radiation but it wasn’t a problematic amount that would put their lives in danger. Still, the accident caused some radiological, environmental, and health impacts, and various studies were carried out in order to assess that. Even though was noticed an increase of thyroid cancer there was no evidence of a major public health impact; Belarus for example lost about 20% of its agricultural territory; the surrounding forest of the nuclear plant lost pretty much all of its life, all of the trees died because of the high tax of radiation assimilation, originating the name “Red Forest”. In the later years, life in the forest has started to reappear and even more lively.
Covering this incident was considered a rather political risk but the damage was too great to hide, the radiation even reached other countries. After the accident, even though they tried to deny it, the Soviets eventually had to publicly announce it. The world was witnessing one of the major incidents in human history.
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