The Chernobyl nuclear disaster occurred on April 26, 1986 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Pripyat, Ukraine. At that time, Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union.
The accident occurred when the fourth reactor suffered a huge power increase. This led to the core of the reactor exploding. Due to this explosion, large amounts of radioactive particles were released into the atmosphere
A few weeks before the Chernobyl disaster, US scientists performed a safety test on the EBR-II reactor by disabling cooling pumps and automatic protection systems at full thermal power. The core passively cooled itself as designed without human intervention or damage.
During the meltdown, Chernobyl electrician Oleksander Lelechenko saved his younger colleagues from radiation exposure by walking through radioactive water three times to effect emergency repairs alone. He died in a Kiev hospital less than a fortnight after the disaster
Because there was no containment building to trap the radiation, radioactive fallout drifted over parts of the western Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, the UK, and the eastern United States. Large areas of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia were badly contaminated.
About 60% of the radioactive fallout landed in Belarus. 20% of the country was contaminated with radiation, affecting hundreds of thousands of people and mutating thousands of new born. Its far reaching effects mean even today the people of the country having a high rate of cancer and birth defects.
The Chernobyl disaster released approximately 400 times more radioactive fallout than that of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
The first firemen to respond to the Chernobyl meltdown stood above the burning core, which emitted radiation at 30,000 roentgen per hour. When they died a few weeks later, their bodies were so radioactive they were buried in coffins made of lead with the lids welded shut.
Chernobyl firefighter Vladimir Pravik's eyes are believed to have changed from brown to blue due to the radiation exposure.
Sweden was the first to find out about the censored Chernobyl accident. It was discovered when one of the workers at the Forsmark power plant set off evacuation alarms when he had walked through grass that had been contaminated from radioactive rain picked up from Chernobyl over 800 miles away.
The Soviet Union announced the disaster a few days later, after Scandinavian countries reported abnormally high radioactivity levels in their skies.
The containment structure built during the Chernobyl disaster to prevent further release of radioactive material was the largest civil engineering feat in history, involving a quarter of a million construction workers who all reached their official lifetime limits for radiation.
David Bowie wrote the lyrics to his 1987 song "Time Will Crawl" after hearing of the Chernobyl disaster, and later chose the song as one of his favorites from his entire career.
It took until 2000 for the Chernobyl nuclear plant to be taken entirely offline.
Mikhail Gorbachev, the man who oversaw the dismantling of the USSR, has said that the Chernobyl explosion was “perhaps the real cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union.”
About 5,000 people still work in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone—to keep their radiation levels low, they only work there for 15 days at a time.
Wildlife in the area around Chernobyl has flourished after the disaster, implying that severe radiation is more manageable to animals than humans.
The accident occurred when the fourth reactor suffered a huge power increase. This led to the core of the reactor exploding. Due to this explosion, large amounts of radioactive particles were released into the atmosphere
A few weeks before the Chernobyl disaster, US scientists performed a safety test on the EBR-II reactor by disabling cooling pumps and automatic protection systems at full thermal power. The core passively cooled itself as designed without human intervention or damage.
During the meltdown, Chernobyl electrician Oleksander Lelechenko saved his younger colleagues from radiation exposure by walking through radioactive water three times to effect emergency repairs alone. He died in a Kiev hospital less than a fortnight after the disaster
Because there was no containment building to trap the radiation, radioactive fallout drifted over parts of the western Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, the UK, and the eastern United States. Large areas of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia were badly contaminated.
About 60% of the radioactive fallout landed in Belarus. 20% of the country was contaminated with radiation, affecting hundreds of thousands of people and mutating thousands of new born. Its far reaching effects mean even today the people of the country having a high rate of cancer and birth defects.
The Chernobyl disaster released approximately 400 times more radioactive fallout than that of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
The first firemen to respond to the Chernobyl meltdown stood above the burning core, which emitted radiation at 30,000 roentgen per hour. When they died a few weeks later, their bodies were so radioactive they were buried in coffins made of lead with the lids welded shut.
Chernobyl firefighter Vladimir Pravik's eyes are believed to have changed from brown to blue due to the radiation exposure.
Sweden was the first to find out about the censored Chernobyl accident. It was discovered when one of the workers at the Forsmark power plant set off evacuation alarms when he had walked through grass that had been contaminated from radioactive rain picked up from Chernobyl over 800 miles away.
The Soviet Union announced the disaster a few days later, after Scandinavian countries reported abnormally high radioactivity levels in their skies.
The containment structure built during the Chernobyl disaster to prevent further release of radioactive material was the largest civil engineering feat in history, involving a quarter of a million construction workers who all reached their official lifetime limits for radiation.
David Bowie wrote the lyrics to his 1987 song "Time Will Crawl" after hearing of the Chernobyl disaster, and later chose the song as one of his favorites from his entire career.
It took until 2000 for the Chernobyl nuclear plant to be taken entirely offline.
Mikhail Gorbachev, the man who oversaw the dismantling of the USSR, has said that the Chernobyl explosion was “perhaps the real cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union.”
About 5,000 people still work in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone—to keep their radiation levels low, they only work there for 15 days at a time.
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| Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant reactor number 4. By Matti Paavonen - Wikipedia |
Wildlife in the area around Chernobyl has flourished after the disaster, implying that severe radiation is more manageable to animals than humans.
Fungi are growing on the walls of Chernobyl's ruined nuclear reactor. They seem to absorb radiation and convert it into chemical energy for growth.
Oksana Masters was born in Ukraine in 1989 with several birth defects caused by exposure to radiation from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, including six toes, webbed fingers, no thumbs, one leg 15cm shorter than the other, and missing some organs. Despite these challenges, she started skiing at the age of seven, and by the age of 13, she was competing in Paralympic competitions. In 2018, she won her first Paralympic gold medal in cross-country skiing.
The residents of Chernobyl had Slavutych, a new city in northern Ukraine, built for them by workers from eight former Soviet republics. The city has a range of different architectural styles such as pink stoned Armenian buildings and wooden Baltic-style houses. City districts are named after a city from each republic. . As of 2014, the city has a population of 25,112 inhabitants.
"Chernobyl" is the Ukrainian word for "wormwood." Many Christian commentators have linked the disaster to a prophecy in the New Testament Book of Revelation 8 v10-11: "The third angel sounded his trumpet, and a great star, blazing like a torch, fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water— the name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters turned bitter, and many people died from the waters that had become bitter."
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