Chernobyl Disaster

The Chernobyl Disaster was a well-known nuclear disaster that occurred on April 26, 1986, at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine (then Part of the USSR). It is considered the worst nuclear power plant Accident in history and is the only level seven event on the International Nuclear Event Scale. Following the accident, Ukraine continued to operate the remaining reactors at Chernobyl for many years. The last reactor was closed down in 2000.


The accident raised concerned about the safety of the Soviet nuclear power industry as well as nuclear power in general, slowing its expansion for a number of years while forcing the Soviet government to become less secretive about its procedures. Four hundred times more radiactive material was released than had been by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. In the aftermath of the accident, 237 people suffered from acute radiation sickness, of whom thirty died within the first months. Most of this were fire and rescue workers trying to bring the accident under control.

The picture above shows how far the radiation cloud had spread over the Northern Hemisphere by the tenth day after the explosion.

Here are some links were you can get more information about this topic:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster#Deaths_and_survivors

http://blogs.newamericamedia.org/kitchen-sink/78/nuclear-nightmares-twenty-years-since-chernobyl