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Chernobyl - The tragedy with facts and figures

On April 25th 1986 the world's worst nuclear power accident struck Chernobyl, in today's Ukraine. The nuclear power plant is located 80 miles away from Kiev and it had 4 nuclear reactors. While testing reactor number 4, various security measures were disregarded, which lead to many explosions that succeed in blowing the heavy steel and concrete lid of the reactor.

30 people were killed immediately and 135,000 people were evacuated from a 20 mile radius around the reactor because of the high radiation levels.

I believe that a few geographical details of Ukraine would help to understand the effects of the disaster, and what other countries it maybe affected. (I used Ukraine even though the disaster happened when the territory was of the USSR because I find it more relevant as the disaster shows its consequences even today.)

Location: Eastern Europe, bordering the Black Sea, between Poland, Romania, and Moldova in the west and Russia in the east

Area: 80 miles away from Kiev
total: 603,700 sq km
land: 603,700 sq km
water: 0 sq km
Area - comparative: slightly smaller than Texas

Various things lead to the disaster: the reactor's construction weaknesses which were known at the time and ignored, the fact that safety necessities were ignored, and finally, the lack of experience with safety of the people looking after the reactor.

Besides Ukraine, Belarus, parts of Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, UK and part of today's Russia were affected as well (or at least felt the radioactivity).
Radiation caused leukaemia in children, cancer in adults, genetic modifications and more, as following: "When uranium (U-235) nuclei are split in a nuclear reactor, various radioactive fission products arise. In terms of harmful impact, the most relevant of these are iodine-131, caesium-137, strontium-90 and plutonium-239. These elements are spread via aerosols (dust particles in the air) and may be inhaled, deposited in the earth by rainfall and water, or enter the food chain via plants." (www.chernobyl.info)

People (45.000) in Pripyat (4 km away) were evacuated by buses 36 hours after the disaster. The town remains inhabited to this day. Then in the period until 5th of May the rest of 90.000 people were evacuated. At least 800 people returned to their villages, despite the official prohibition (The territory has been declared an exclusion zone and a special permission is needed to enter it.). The distribution of iodine (intended to prevent the absorption of radioactive iodine by the thyroid) only started on the 1st of May, too late say medics as the greatest proportion of radioactive iodine had already been released in the first ten days following the accident.

The first attempt to put out the fire in the reactor by pumping cooling water in was not effective. The 2nd attempt was: helicopters flew over throwing sand and led, which were suppose to absorb some of the radiation but this made things worse, as the reactor further heated under these materials so emanating more radioactivity. In the final phase, it was cooled with nitrogen, but only by the 6th of May were the radioactive emissions and the fire under control.

An improper test of the reactor leads to all this destruction, which we can still see today. The accident at Chernobyl unleashed what is known as the world's worst nuclear disaster. The radioactivity was many, many times stronger than the one released by both atomic bombs in Japan put together. The area of Chernobyl is still uninhabitable and all the people that put the fire of the reactor out, about 800.000, still feel damages to their health, if they are not dead that is.

Learn more about this author, Andrew Bucur.
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