[Link]

org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster

Chernobyl disaster
The Chernobyl disaster[a] began on 26 April 1986 with
Chernobyl disaster
the explosion of the No. 4 reactor of the Chernobyl Nuclear
Power Plant near the city of Pripyat in the north of the
Ukrainian SSR, close to the border with the Byelorussian
SSR, in the Soviet Union.[1] It is one of only two nuclear
energy accidents rated at seven—the maximum severity—on
the International Nuclear Event Scale, the other being the
2011 Fukushima nuclear accident. The initial emergency
response and subsequent mitigation efforts involved more
than 500,000 personnel and cost an estimated 18 billion
roubles—roughly US$68 billion in 2019, adjusted for
inflation.[2] It was the worst nuclear disaster in history,[3][4]
[5] and the costliest disaster in human history, costing an

estimated US$700 billion.[6]

The accident occurred during a test of the steam turbine's

ability to power the emergency feedwater pumps in the
event of a simultaneous loss of external power and coolant
pipe rupture. Following an accidental drop in reactor power
to near-zero, the operators restarted the reactor in Reactor 4 several months after the
preparation for the turbine test with a prohibited control disaster. Reactor 3 can be seen behind
rod configuration. Upon successful completion of the test, the ventilation stack.
the reactor was then shut down for maintenance. Due to a
variety of factors, this action resulted in a power surge at
the base of the reactor which brought about the rupture of
reactor components and the loss of coolant. This process led
to steam explosions and a meltdown, which destroyed the
containment building. This was followed by a reactor core
fire which lasted until 4 May 1986, during which airborne
radioactive contaminants were spread throughout the USSR
and Europe.[7][8] In response to the initial accident, a 10-
kilometre (6.2 mi) radius exclusion zone was created 36 Wikimedia | © OpenStreetMap

hours after the accident, from which approximately 49,000 Date 26 April 1986
people were evacuated, primarily from Pripyat. The Time 01:23 MSD (UTC+04:00)
exclusion zone was later increased to a radius of 30
Location Chernobyl Nuclear Power
kilometres (19 mi), from which an additional ~68,000
Plant, Pripyat, Chernobyl
people were evacuated.[9]
Raion, Kiev Oblast,
Following the reactor explosion, which killed two engineers Ukrainian SSR, Soviet

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and severely burned two more, an emergency operation to Union

put out the fires and stabilize the surviving reactor began, (now Vyshhorod Raion, Kyiv
during which 237 workers were hospitalized, of whom 134 Oblast, Ukraine)
exhibited symptoms of acute radiation syndrome (ARS).
Type Nuclear and Radiation
Among those hospitalized, 28 died within the following
accident
three months. In the following 10 years, 14 more workers (9
Cause Reactor design and operator
of whom had been hospitalized with ARS) died of various
error
causes mostly unrelated to radiation exposure.[10] It
remains the only time in the history of commercial nuclear Outcome INES Level 7 (major
power that radiation-related fatalities occurred.[11][12] 15 accident)
childhood thyroid cancer deaths were attributed to the Deaths 2 killed by debris (including
disaster as of 2011.[13] A United Nations committee found 1 missing) and 28 killed by
that to date fewer than 100 deaths have resulted from the acute radiation sickness.
fallout.[14] Model predictions of the eventual total death toll 15 terminal cases of thyroid
in the coming decades vary. The most widely cited study cancer, with varying
conducted by the World Health Organization in 2006, estimates of increased
predicted 9,000 cancer-related fatalities in Ukraine, Belarus cancer mortality over
and Russia.[15] subsequent decades
(for more details, see
Following the disaster, Pripyat was abandoned and Deaths due to the disaster)
eventually replaced by the new purpose-built city of
Slavutych. The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant sarcophagus was built by December 1986. It
reduced the spread of radioactive contamination from the wreckage and protected the site from
weathering. The confinement shelter also provided radiological protection for the crews of the
undamaged reactors at the site, which were restarted in late 1986 and 1987. However, the
containment structure was only intended to last for 30 years, and required sizeable reinforcement
in the early 2000s. The shelter was largely supplemented in 2017 by the Chernobyl New Safe
Confinement, which was constructed around the old sarcophagus structure. The new enclosure
aims to enable the removal of the sarcophagus and the reactor debris while containing the
radioactive materials inside, with clean-up scheduled for completion by 2065.[16]

Background

Reactor cooling after shutdown

In power-generating operation, most of the heat generated in a nuclear reactor by its fuel rods is
derived from nuclear fission, but a significant fraction (over 6%) is derived from the radioactive
decay of the accumulated fission products, a process known as decay heat. This decay heat
continues for some time after the fission chain reaction has been stopped, such as following a
reactor shutdown, either emergency or planned, and continued pumped circulation of coolant is
essential to prevent core overheating, or in the worst case, core meltdown.[17] RBMK reactors, like
those at Chernobyl, use water as a coolant, circulated by electrically driven pumps.[18][19] The
coolant flow rate is considerable—Reactor No. 4 had 1661 individual fuel channels, each requiring a

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coolant flow of 28 m3/h (990 cu ft/h) at full reactor power, for

a total of over 45 million litres per hour (12 million gallons per
hour) for the entire reactor.

In case of a total power loss at the station, each of Chernobyl's

reactors had three backup diesel generators, but they took 60–
75 seconds to attain full load[20]: 15 and generate the
5.5-megawatt output required to run one main pump.[20]: 30 In
the interim, special counterweights on each pump would
Reactor decay heat shown as % of
enable them to provide coolant via inertia, thereby bridging the
thermal power from time of
gap to generator startup.[21][22] However, a potential safety risk sustained fission shutdown using
existed in the event that a station blackout occurred two different correlations. Due to
simultaneously with the rupture of a 600-millimetre (24 in) decay heat, solid fuel power
coolant pipe (the so-called Design Basis Accident). In this reactors need high flows of coolant
scenario the emergency core cooling system (ECCS) is needed after a fission shutdown for a
considerable time to prevent fuel
to pump additional water into the core, replacing coolant lost
cladding damage, or in the worst
to evaporation.[23]
case, a full core meltdown.

It had been theorized that the rotational momentum of the

reactor's steam turbine could be used to generate the required electrical power to operate the ECCS
via the feedwater pumps. The turbine's speed would run down as energy was taken from it, but
analysis indicated that there might be sufficient energy to provide electrical power to run the
coolant pumps for 45 seconds.[20]: 16 This would not quite bridge the gap between an external
power failure and the full availability of the emergency generators, but would alleviate the
situation.[24]

Safety test
The turbine run-down energy capability still needed to be confirmed experimentally, and previous
tests had ended unsuccessfully. An initial test carried out in 1982 indicated that the excitation
voltage of the turbine-generator was insufficient; it did not maintain the desired magnetic field
after the turbine trip. The electrical system was modified, and the test was repeated in 1984 but
again proved unsuccessful. In 1985, the test was conducted a third time but also yielded no results
due to a problem with the recording equipment. The test procedure was to be run again in 1986
and was scheduled to take place during a controlled power-down of reactor No. 4, which was
preparatory to a planned maintenance outage.[24][23]: 51

A test procedure had been written, but the authors were not aware of the unusual RBMK-1000
reactor behaviour under the planned operating conditions.[23]: 52 It was regarded as purely an
electrical test of the generator, not a complex unit test, even though it involved critical unit
systems. According to the regulations in place at the time, such a test did not require approval by
either the chief design authority for the reactor (NIKIET) or the Soviet nuclear safety regulator.
[23]: 51–52 The test program called for disabling the emergency core cooling system, a passive/active

system of core cooling intended to provide water to the core in a loss-of-coolant accident, and
approval from the Chernobyl site chief engineer had been obtained according to regulations.[23]: 18

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The test procedure was intended to run as follows:

Test preparation

1. The test would take place prior to a scheduled reactor shutdown

2. The reactor thermal power was to be reduced to between 700 MW and 1,000 MW (to allow for
adequate cooling, as the turbine would be spun at operating speed while disconnected from
the power grid)
3. The steam-turbine generator was to be run at normal operating speed
4. Four out of eight main circulating pumps were to be supplied with off-site power, while the other
four would be powered by the turbine
Electrical test

1. When the correct conditions were achieved, the steam supply to the turbine generator would
be closed, and the reactor would be shut down
2. The voltage provided by the coasting turbine would be measured, along with the voltage and
revolutions per minute (RPMs) of the four main circulating pumps being powered by the turbine
3. When the emergency generators supplied full electrical power, the turbine generator would be
allowed to continue free-wheeling down

Test delay and shift change

The test was to be
conducted during the day-
shift of 25 April 1986 as
part of a scheduled reactor
shut down. The day shift
crew had been instructed
in advance on the reactor
operating conditions to
run the test, and, in
addition, a special team of
electrical engineers was
present to conduct the
one-minute test of the
Process flow diagram of the reactor
new voltage regulating
system once the correct
conditions had been reached.[25] As planned, a gradual reduction in the output of the power unit
began at 01:06 on 25 April, and the power level had reached 50% of its nominal 3,200 MW thermal
level by the beginning of the day shift.[23]: 53

The day shift performed many unrelated maintenance tasks, and was scheduled to perform the test
at 14:15.[26]: 3 Preparations for the test were carried out, including the disabling of the emergency
core cooling system.[23]: 53 Meanwhile, another regional power station unexpectedly went offline.
At 14:00,[23]: 53 the Kiev electrical grid controller requested that the further reduction of
Chernobyl's output be postponed, as power was needed to satisfy the peak evening demand, so the
test was postponed.

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Soon, the day shift was

replaced by the evening
shift.[26]: 3 Despite the
delay, the emergency core
cooling system was left
disabled. This system had
to be disconnected via a
manual isolating slide
valve,[23]: 51 which in
practice meant that two or
three people spent the
whole shift manually
turning sailboat-helm-
sized valve wheels.[26]: 4
The system would have no
influence on the events
that unfolded next, but
allowing the reactor to run
for 11 hours outside of the
test without emergency
protection was indicative
of a general lack of safety
culture.[23]: 10, 18

At 23:04, the Kiev grid Comparative Generation II reactor vessels size comparison, a design
controller allowed the classification of commercial reactors built until the end of the 1990s.
reactor shutdown to
resume. This delay had
some serious consequences: the day shift had long since departed, the evening shift was also
preparing to leave, and the night shift would not take over until midnight, well into the job.
According to plan, the test should have been finished during the day shift, and the night shift would
only have had to maintain decay heat cooling systems in an otherwise shut-down plant.[20]: 36–38

The night shift had very limited time to prepare for and carry out the experiment. Anatoly Dyatlov,
deputy chief-engineer of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant (ChNPP), was present to supervise
and direct the test. He was one of the test's chief authors and he was the highest-ranking individual
present. Unit Shift Supervisor Aleksandr Akimov was in charge of the Unit 4 night shift, and
Leonid Toptunov was the Senior Reactor Control Engineer responsible for the reactor's operational
regimen, including the movement of the control rods. 25-year-old Toptunov had worked
independently as a senior engineer for approximately three months.[20]: 36–38

Unexpected drop of the reactor power

The test plan called for a gradual decrease in reactor power to a thermal level of 700–1000 MW,[27]
and an output of 720 MW was reached at 00:05 on 26 April.[23]: 53 However, due to the reactor's

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production of a fission byproduct, xenon-135, which is a reaction-inhibiting neutron absorber,

power continued to decrease in the absence of further operator action, a process known as reactor
poisoning. In steady-state operation, this is avoided because xenon-135 is "burned off" as quickly
as it is created from decaying iodine-135 by the absorption of neutrons from the ongoing chain
reaction, becoming highly stable xenon-136. With the reactor power reduced, high quantities of
previously produced iodine-135 were decaying into the neutron-absorbing xenon-135 faster than
the reduced neutron flux could "burn it off".[28] Xenon poisoning in this context made reactor
control more difficult, but was a predictable and well-understood phenomenon during such a
power reduction.

When the reactor power had decreased to approximately 500 MW, the reactor power control was
switched from LAR (local automatic regulator) to the automatic regulators, in order to manually
maintain the required power level.[23]: 11 AR-1 then activated, removing all four of AR-1's control
rods automatically, but AR-2 failed to activate due to an imbalance in its ionization chambers. In
response, Toptunov reduced power to stabilize the automatic regulators' ionization sensors. The
result was a sudden power drop to an unintended near-shutdown state, with a power output of
30 MW thermal or less. The exact circumstances that caused the power drop are unknown. Most
reports attribute the power drop to Toptunov's error, but Dyatlov reported that it was due to a fault
in the AR-2 system.[23]: 11

The reactor was now producing only 5% of the minimum initial power level prescribed for the test.
[23]: 73 This low reactivity inhibited the burn-off of xenon-135[23]: 6 within the reactor core and

hindered the rise of reactor power. To increase power, control-room personnel removed numerous
control rods from the reactor.[29] Several minutes elapsed before the reactor was restored to
160 MW at 00:39, at which point most control rods were at their upper limits, but the rod
configuration was still within its normal operating limit, with Operational Reactivity Margin
(ORM) equivalent to having more than 15 rods inserted. Over the next twenty minutes, reactor
power would be increased further to 200 MW.[23]: 73

The operation of the reactor at the low power level (and high poisoning level) was accompanied by
unstable core temperatures and coolant flow, and, possibly, by instability of neutron flux. The
control room received repeated emergency signals regarding the low levels in one half of the
steam/water separator drums, with accompanying drum separator pressure warnings. In response,
personnel triggered several rapid influxes of feedwater. Relief valves opened to relieve excess steam
into a turbine condenser.

Reactor conditions priming the accident

When a power level of 200 MW was reattained, preparation for the experiment continued,
although the power level was much lower than the prescribed 700 MW. As part of the test
program, two additional main circulating (coolant) pumps were activated at 01:05. The increased
coolant flow lowered the overall core temperature and reduced the existing steam voids in the core.
Because water absorbs neutrons better than steam, the neutron flux and reactivity decreased. The
operators responded by removing more manual control rods to maintain power.[30][31] It was
around this time that the number of control rods inserted in the reactor fell below the required

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value of 15. This was not apparent to the operators, because the RBMK did not have any
instruments capable of calculating the inserted rod worth in real time.

The combined effect of these various actions was an extremely unstable reactor configuration.
Nearly all of the 211 control rods had been extracted, and excessively high coolant flow rates meant
that the water had less time to cool between trips through the core, therefore entering the reactor
very close to the boiling point. Unlike other light-water reactor designs, the RBMK design at that
time had a positive void coefficient of reactivity at typical fuel burnup levels. This meant that the
formation of steam bubbles (voids) from boiling cooling water intensified the nuclear chain
reaction owing to voids having lower neutron absorption than water. Unknown to the operators,
the void coefficient was not counterbalanced by other reactivity effects in the given operating
regime, meaning that any increase in boiling would produce more steam voids which further
intensified the chain reaction, leading to a positive feedback loop. Given this characteristic, reactor
No. 4 was now at risk of a runaway increase in its core power with nothing to restrain it. The
reactor was now very sensitive to the regenerative effect of steam voids on reactor power.[23]: 3, 14

Accident

Test execution
At 01:23:04, the test began.[32] Four of the eight main circulating pumps (MCP) were to be
powered by voltage from the coasting turbine, while the remaining four pumps received electrical
power from the grid as normal. The steam to the turbines was shut off, beginning a run-down of
the turbine generator. The diesel generators started and sequentially picked up loads; the
generators were to have completely picked up the MCPs' power needs by 01:23:43. As the
momentum of the turbine generator decreased, so did the power it produced for the pumps. The
water flow rate decreased, leading to increased formation of steam voids in the coolant flowing up
through the fuel pressure tubes.[23]: 8

Reactor shutdown and power excursion

At 01:23:40, as recorded by the SKALA centralized control system, a scram (emergency shutdown)
of the reactor was initiated[33] as the experiment was wrapping up.[34] The scram was started when
the AZ-5 button (also known as the EPS-5 button) of the reactor emergency protection system was
pressed: this engaged the drive mechanism on all control rods to fully insert them, including the
manual control rods that had been withdrawn earlier.

The personnel had already intended to shut down using the AZ-5 button in preparation for
scheduled maintenance[35] and the scram preceded the sharp increase in power.[23]: 13 However,
the precise reason why the button was pressed when it was is not certain, as only the deceased
Akimov and Toptunov partook in that decision, though the atmosphere in the control room was
calm at that moment, according to several eyewitnesses.[36][37]: 85 Meanwhile, the RBMK designers
claim that the button had to have been pressed only after the reactor already began to self-destruct.
[38]: 578

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When the
AZ-5 button
was pressed,
the insertion
of control
rods into the
reactor core
began. The
control rod
insertion
mechanism
moved the
rods at 0.4
metres per
second
(1.3 ft/s), so
that the rods
took 18 to
20 seconds to
travel the full
height of the
core, about 7
metres
(23 ft). A
bigger
problem was
the design of
the RBMK Plan view of reactor No. 4 core. The number on each control rod indicates the insertion depth in
control rods, centimeters one minute prior to the disaster.
each of which neutron detectors (12)
had a control rods (167)
graphite short control rods from below reactor (32)
neutron automatic control rods (12)
moderator pressure tubes with fuel rods (1661)
section
attached to
its end to boost reactor output by displacing water when the control rod section had been fully
withdrawn from the reactor. That is, when a control rod was at maximum extraction, a neutron-
moderating graphite extension was centered in the core with 1.25 metres (4.1 ft) columns of water
above and below it.[23]

Consequently, injecting a control rod downward into the reactor in a scram initially displaced
neutron-absorbing water in the lower portion of the reactor with neutron-moderating graphite.
Thus, an emergency scram could initially increase the reaction rate in the lower part of the core.
[23]: 4 This behaviour was discovered when the initial insertion of control rods in another RBMK

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reactor at Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant in 1983 induced

a power spike. Procedural countermeasures were not
implemented in response to Ignalina. The IAEA
investigative report INSAG-7 later stated, "Apparently,
there was a widespread view that the conditions under
which the positive scram effect would be important
would never occur. However, they did appear in almost
every detail in the course of the actions leading to the
Chernobyl accident."[23]: 13

A few seconds into the scram, a power spike occurred,

and the core overheated, causing some of the fuel rods
to fracture. Some have speculated that this also blocked
the control rod columns, jamming them at one-third
insertion. Within three seconds the reactor output rose
above 530 MW.[20]: 31

Instruments did not register the subsequent course of

events; it was reconstructed through mathematical Steam plumes continued to be generated
simulation. Per the simulation, the power spike would days after the initial explosion[39]
have caused an increase in fuel temperature and steam
buildup, leading to a rapid increase in steam pressure.
This caused the fuel cladding to fail, releasing the fuel elements into the coolant and rupturing the
channels in which these elements were located.[40]

Steam explosions
As the scram continued, the reactor output jumped to around 30,000 MW thermal, 10 times its
normal operational output, the indicated last reading on the power meter on the control panel.
Some estimate the power spike may have gone 10 times higher than that. It was not possible to
reconstruct the precise sequence of the processes that led to the destruction of the reactor and the
power unit building, but a steam explosion—like the explosion of a steam boiler from excess vapour
pressure—appears to have been the next event. There is a general understanding that it was
explosive steam pressure from the damaged fuel channels escaping into the reactor's exterior
cooling structure that caused the explosion that destroyed the reactor casing, tearing off and
blasting the upper plate called the upper biological shield,[41] to which the entire reactor assembly
is fastened, through the roof of the reactor building. This is believed to be the first explosion that
many heard.[42]: 366

This explosion ruptured further fuel channels, as well as severing most of the coolant lines feeding
the reactor chamber, and as a result, the remaining coolant flashed to steam and escaped the
reactor core. The total water loss combined with a high positive void coefficient further increased
the reactor's thermal power.[23]

A second, more powerful explosion occurred about two or three seconds after the first; this
explosion dispersed the damaged core and effectively terminated the nuclear chain reaction. This

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explosion also compromised more of the reactor containment vessel and ejected hot lumps of
graphite moderator. The ejected graphite and the demolished channels still in the remains of the
reactor vessel caught fire on exposure to air, significantly contributing to the spread of radioactive
fallout and the contamination of outlying areas.[30][b] The explosion is estimated to have had the
power equivalent of 225 tons of TNT.[45]

According to observers outside Unit 4, burning lumps of material and sparks shot into the air
above the reactor. Some of them fell onto the roof of the machine hall and started a fire. About 25%
of the red-hot graphite blocks and overheated material from the fuel channels was ejected. Parts of
the graphite blocks and fuel channels were out of the reactor building. As a result of the damage to
the building, an airflow through the core was established by the core's high temperature. The air
ignited the hot graphite and started a graphite fire.[20]:32

After the larger explosion, several employees at the power station went outside to get a clearer view
of the extent of the damage. One such survivor, Alexander Yuvchenko, said that once he stepped
out and looked up towards the reactor hall, he saw a "very beautiful" laser-like beam of blue light
caused by the ionized-air glow that appeared to be "flooding up into infinity".[46][47]

There were initially several hypotheses about the nature of the second explosion. One view was that
the second explosion was caused by the combustion of hydrogen, which had been produced either
by the overheated steam-zirconium reaction or by the reaction of red-hot graphite with steam that
produced hydrogen and carbon monoxide. Another hypothesis, by Konstantin Checherov,
published in 1998, was that the second explosion was a thermal explosion of the reactor due to the
uncontrollable escape of fast neutrons caused by the complete water loss in the reactor core.[48]

Crisis management

Fire containment
Contrary to safety regulations, bitumen, a combustible
material, had been used in the construction of the roof of the
reactor building and the turbine hall. Ejected material ignited
at least five fires on the roof of the adjacent reactor No. 3,
which was still operating. It was imperative to put out those
fires and protect the cooling systems of reactor No. 3.[20]: 42
Inside reactor No. 3, the chief of the night shift, Yuri
Bagdasarov, wanted to shut down the reactor immediately, but
chief engineer Nikolai Fomin would not allow this. The
operators were given respirators and potassium iodide tablets Firefighter Leonid Telyatnikov being
and told to continue working. At 05:00, Bagdasarov made his decorated for bravery
own decision to shut down the reactor,[20]: 44 which was
confirmed in writing by Dyatlov and Station Shift Supervisor
Rogozhkin.

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Shortly after the accident, firefighters arrived to try to extinguish the fires.[32] First on the scene
was a Chernobyl Power Station firefighter brigade under the command of Lieutenant Volodymyr
Pravyk, who died on 11 May 1986 of acute radiation sickness. They were not told how dangerously
radioactive the smoke and the debris were, and may not even have known that the accident was
anything more than a regular electrical fire: "We didn't know it was the reactor. No one had told
us."[49] Grigorii Khmel, the driver of one of the fire engines, later described what happened:

We arrived there at 10 or 15 minutes to two in the morning ... We saw graphite scattered
about. Misha asked: "Is that graphite?" I kicked it away. But one of the fighters on the
other truck picked it up. "It's hot," he said. The pieces of graphite were of different sizes,
some big, some small enough to pick them up [...] We didn't know much about radiation.
Even those who worked there had no idea. There was no water left in the trucks. Misha
filled a cistern and we aimed the water at the top. Then those boys who died went up to
the roof—Vashchik, Kolya and others, and Volodya Pravik ... They went up the ladder ...
and I never saw them again.[50]

Anatoli Zakharov, a fireman stationed in Chernobyl since 1980,

offered a different description in 2008: "I remember joking to
the others, 'There must be an incredible amount of radiation
here. We'll be lucky if we're all still alive in the morning.' "[51]
He also stated, "Of course we knew! If we'd followed
regulations, we would never have gone near the reactor. But it
was a moral obligation—our duty. We were like kamikaze."[51]

The immediate priority was to extinguish fires on the roof of

Video still image showing a graphite
the station and the area around the building containing Reactor
moderator block ejected from the
No. 4 to protect No. 3 and keep its core cooling systems intact. core
The fires were extinguished by 5:00, but many firefighters
received high doses of radiation. The fire inside reactor No. 4
continued to burn until 10 May 1986; it is possible that well over half of the graphite burned out.
[20]: 73

It was thought by some that the core fire was extinguished by a combined effort of helicopters
dropping more than 5,000 tonnes (11 million pounds) of sand, lead, clay, and neutron-absorbing
boron onto the burning reactor. It is now known that virtually none of these materials reached the
core.[52] Historians estimate that about 600 Soviet pilots risked dangerous levels of radiation to fly
the thousands of flights needed to cover reactor No. 4 in this attempt to seal off radiation.[53]

From eyewitness accounts of the firefighters involved before they died (as reported on the CBC
television series Witness), one described his experience of the radiation as "tasting like metal", and
feeling a sensation similar to that of pins and needles all over his face. This is consistent with the
description given by Louis Slotin, a Manhattan Project physicist who died days after a fatal
radiation overdose from a criticality accident.[54]

The explosion and fire threw hot particles of the nuclear fuel and also far more dangerous fission

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products (radioactive isotopes such as caesium-137, iodine-131, strontium-90, and other

radionuclides) into the air. The residents of the surrounding area observed the radioactive cloud on
the night of the explosion.

Radiation levels
The ionizing radiation levels in the worst-hit areas of the reactor building have been estimated to
be 5.6 roentgens per second (R/s), equivalent to more than 20,000 roentgens per hour. A lethal
dose is around 500 roentgens (~5 Gray (Gy) in modern radiation units) over five hours, so in some
areas, unprotected workers received fatal doses in less than a minute. Unfortunately, a dosimeter
capable of measuring up to 1,000 R/s was buried in the rubble of a collapsed part of the building,
and another one failed when turned on. Most remaining dosimeters had limits of 0.001 R/s and
therefore read "off scale". Thus, the reactor crew could ascertain only that the radiation levels were
somewhere above 0.001 R/s (3.6 R/h), while the true levels were vastly higher in some areas.
[20]: 42–50

Because of the inaccurate low readings, the reactor crew chief Aleksandr Akimov assumed that the
reactor was intact. The evidence of pieces of graphite and reactor fuel lying around the building
was ignored, and the readings of another dosimeter brought in by 04:30 were dismissed under the
assumption that the new dosimeter must have been defective.[20]: 42–50 Akimov stayed with his
crew in the reactor building until morning, sending members of his crew to try to pump water into
the reactor. None of them wore any protective gear. Most, including Akimov, died from radiation
exposure within three weeks.[55][56]: 247–248

Evacuation
The nearby city of Pripyat was not immediately evacuated. The
townspeople, in the early hours of the morning, at 01:23 local
time, went about their usual business, completely oblivious to
what had just happened. However, within a few hours of the
explosion, dozens of people fell ill. Later, they reported severe
headaches and metallic tastes in their mouths, along with
Pripyat with the Chernobyl Nuclear
uncontrollable fits of coughing and vomiting.[57] As the plant
Power Plant in the distance
was run by authorities in Moscow, the government of Ukraine
did not receive prompt information on the accident.[58]

Valentyna Shevchenko, then Chairwoman of the Presidium of Verkhovna Rada of the Ukrainian
SSR, said that Ukraine's acting Minister of Internal Affairs Vasyl Durdynets phoned her at work at
09:00 to report current affairs; only at the end of the conversation did he add that there had been a
fire at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, but it was extinguished and everything was fine. When
Shevchenko asked "How are the people?", he replied that there was nothing to be concerned about:
"Some are celebrating a wedding, others are gardening, and others are fishing in the Pripyat River".
[58]

Shevchenko then spoke by telephone to Volodymyr Shcherbytsky, general secretary of the

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Communist Party of Ukraine and de facto head of state, who said he anticipated a delegation of the
state commission headed by Boris Shcherbina, the deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers of
the USSR.[58]

A commission was established later in the day to investigate the

accident. It was headed by Valery Legasov, First Deputy
Director of the Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy, and
included leading nuclear specialist Evgeny Velikhov, hydro-
meteorologist Yuri Izrael, radiologist Leonid Ilyin, and others.
They flew to Boryspil International Airport and arrived at the
power plant in the evening of 26 April.[58] By that time two
people had already died and 52 were hospitalized. The
delegation soon had ample evidence that the reactor was Ruins of abandoned house in
Chernobyl (May 2019)
destroyed and extremely high levels of radiation had caused a
number of cases of radiation exposure. In the early daylight
hours of 27 April, they ordered the evacuation of Pripyat. Initially it was decided to evacuate the
population for three days; later this was made permanent.[58]

By 11:00 on 27 April, buses had arrived in Pripyat

Pripyat evacuation broadcast
to start the evacuation.[58] The evacuation began at
2:34
14:00. A translated excerpt of the evacuation
announcement follows: Russian language announcement

For the attention of the residents of Problems playing this file? See media help.
Pripyat! The City Council informs you that
due to the accident at Chernobyl Power
Station in the city of Pripyat the
radioactive conditions in the vicinity are
deteriorating. The Communist Party, its
officials and the armed forces are taking
necessary steps to combat this.
Nevertheless, with the view to keep people
as safe and healthy as possible, the
children being top priority, we need to
temporarily evacuate the citizens in the
nearest towns of Kiev region. For these
reasons, starting from 27 April 1986,
14:00 each apartment block will be able to
have a bus at its disposal, supervised by
the police and the city officials. It is highly
advisable to take your documents, some
vital personal belongings and a certain
amount of food, just in case, with you. The
senior executives of public and industrial
facilities of the city has decided on the list

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of employees needed to stay in Pripyat to maintain these facilities in a good working

order. All the houses will be guarded by the police during the evacuation period.
Comrades, leaving your residences temporarily please make sure you have turned off the
lights, electrical equipment and water and shut the windows. Please keep calm and
orderly in the process of this short-term evacuation.[59]

To expedite the evacuation, residents were told to bring only

what was necessary, and that they would remain evacuated for
approximately three days. As a result, most personal
belongings were left behind, and residents were only allowed to
recover certain items after months had passed. By 15:00,
53,000 people were evacuated to various villages of the Kiev
region.[58] The next day, talks began for evacuating people
from the 10-kilometre (6.2 mi) zone.[58] Ten days after the
accident, the evacuation area was expanded to 30 kilometres Abandoned objects in the
(19 mi).[60]: 115, 120–121 The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant evacuation zone
Exclusion Zone has remained ever since, although its shape has
changed and its size has been expanded.

The surveying and detection of isolated fallout hotspots outside this zone over the following year
eventually resulted in 135,000 long-term evacuees in total agreeing to be moved.[9] The years
between 1986 and 2000 saw the near tripling in the total number of permanently resettled persons
from the most severely contaminated areas to approximately 350,000.[61][62]

Official announcement
Evacuation began one and a half days before
the accident was publicly acknowledged by
the Soviet Union. In the morning of 28 April,
radiation levels set off alarms at the
Forsmark Nuclear Power Plant in Sweden,
[63][64] over 1,000 kilometres (620 mi) from

the Chernobyl Plant. Workers at Forsmark

reported the case to the Swedish Radiation
Safety Authority, which determined that the
radiation had originated elsewhere. That
day, the Swedish government contacted the
Soviet government to inquire about whether
there had been a nuclear accident in the
Soviet Union. The Soviets initially denied it, Picture taken by French satellite SPOT-1 on 1 May 1986
and it was only after the Swedish
government suggested they were about to
file an official alert with the International Atomic Energy Agency, that the Soviet government
admitted that an accident had taken place at Chernobyl.[64][65]

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At first, the Soviets only conceded that a minor accident had occurred, but once they began
evacuating more than 100,000 people, the full scale of the situation was realized by the global
community.[66] At 21:02 the evening of 28 April, a 20-second announcement was read in the TV
news programme Vremya: "There has been an accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. One
of the nuclear reactors was damaged. The effects of the accident are being remedied. Assistance has
been provided for any affected people. An investigative commission has been set up."[67][68]

This was the entire announcement, and the first time the Soviet Union officially announced a
nuclear accident. The Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS) then discussed the Three Mile
Island accident and other American nuclear accidents, which Serge Schmemann of The New York
Times wrote was an example of the common Soviet tactic of whataboutism. The mention of a
commission also indicated to observers the seriousness of the incident,[65] and subsequent state
radio broadcasts were replaced with classical music, which was a common method of preparing the
public for an announcement of a tragedy in the USSR.[67]

Around the same time, ABC News released its report about the disaster.[69] Shevchenko was the
first of the Ukrainian state top officials to arrive at the disaster site early on 28 April. There she
spoke with members of medical staff and people, who were calm and hopeful that they could soon
return to their homes. Shevchenko returned home near midnight, stopping at a radiological
checkpoint in Vilcha, one of the first that were set up soon after the accident.[58]

There was a notification from Moscow that there was no reason to postpone the 1 May
International Workers' Day celebrations in Kiev (including the annual parade), but on 30 April a
meeting of the Political bureau of the Central Committee of the CPSU took place to discuss the plan
for the upcoming celebration. Scientists were reporting that the radiological background level in
Kiev was normal. At the meeting, which was finished at 18:00, it was decided to shorten
celebrations from the regular three and a half to four hours to under two hours.[58]

Several buildings in Pripyat were officially kept open after the disaster to be used by workers still
involved with the plant. These included the Jupiter factory (which closed in 1996) and the Azure
Swimming Pool, used by the Chernobyl liquidators for recreation during the clean-up (which
closed in 1998).

Core meltdown risk mitigation

Bubbler pools
Two floors of bubbler pools beneath the reactor served as a large water reservoir for the emergency
cooling pumps and as a pressure suppression system capable of condensing steam in case of a
small broken steam pipe; the third floor above them, below the reactor, served as a steam tunnel.
The steam released by a broken pipe was supposed to enter the steam tunnel and be led into the
pools to bubble through a layer of water. After the disaster, the pools and the basement were
flooded because of ruptured cooling water pipes and accumulated firefighting water.

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The smoldering graphite, fuel and other material, at more than

1,200 °C (2,190 °F),[71] started to burn through the reactor
floor and mixed with molten concrete from the reactor lining,
creating corium, a radioactive semi-liquid material comparable
to lava.[70][72] It was feared that if this mixture melted through
the floor into the pool of water, the resulting steam production
would further contaminate the area or even cause a steam
explosion, ejecting more radioactive material from the reactor.
It became necessary to drain the pool.[73] These fears Chernobyl lava-like corium, formed
by fuel-containing mass, flowed into
ultimately proved unfounded, since corium began dripping
the basement of the plant.[70]
harmlessly into the flooded bubbler pools before the water
could be removed.
[74] The molten fuel

hit the water and

cooled into a light-
brown ceramic
pumice, whose low
density allowed the
substance to float
on the water's
surface. [74]

Extremely high levels of radioactivity in the lava under the Chernobyl number four reactor
in 1986

Unaware of this fact, the government commission directed that the bubbler pools be drained by
opening its sluice gates. The valves controlling it, however, were located in a flooded corridor in a
subterranean annex adjacent to the reactor building. Volunteers in diving suits and respirators (for
protection against radioactive aerosols), and equipped with dosimeters, entered the knee-deep
radioactive water and managed to open the valves.[75][76] These were the engineers Oleksiy
Ananenko and Valeri Bezpalov (who knew where the valves were), accompanied by the shift
supervisor Boris Baranov.[77][78][79] The three men were awarded the Order For Courage by
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in May 2018.[80]

Numerous media reports falsely suggested that all three men died just days after the incident. In
fact, all three survived and continued to work in the nuclear energy industry.[81] Ananenko and
Bezpalov were still alive as of 2021, while Baranov had died of heart failure in 2005 at age 65.[82]
Once the bubbler pool gates were opened by the three volunteers, fire brigade pumps were then
used to drain the basement. The operation was not completed until 8 May, after 20,000 tonnes
(20,000 long tons; 22,000 short tons) of water were pumped out.[83]

Foundation protection measures

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The government commission was concerned that the

molten core would burn into the earth and contaminate
groundwater below the reactor. To reduce the likelihood
of this, it was decided to freeze the earth beneath the
reactor, which would also stabilize the foundations. Using
oil well drilling equipment, the injection of liquid
nitrogen began on 4 May. It was estimated that 25 tonnes
(55 thousand pounds) of liquid nitrogen per day would be
required to keep the soil frozen at −100 °C (−148 °F).
New Safe Confinement in 2017. [20]: 59 This idea was quickly scrapped.[84]

As an alternative, subway builders and coal miners were

deployed to excavate a tunnel below the reactor to make room for a cooling system. The final
makeshift design for the cooling system was to incorporate a coiled formation of pipes cooled with
water and covered on top with a thin thermally conductive graphite layer. The graphite layer as a
natural refractory material would prevent the concrete above from melting. This graphite cooling
plate layer was to be encapsulated between two concrete layers, each 1 metre (3 ft 3 in) thick for
stabilisation. This system was designed by Leonid Bolshov, the director of the Institute for Nuclear
Safety and Development formed in 1988. Bolshov's graphite-concrete "sandwich" would be similar
in concept to later core catchers that are now part of many nuclear reactor designs.[85]

Bolshov's graphite cooling plate, alongside the prior nitrogen injection proposal, were not used
following the drop in aerial temperatures and indicative reports that the fuel melt had stopped. It
was later determined that the fuel had flowed three floors, with a few cubic meters coming to rest
at ground level. The precautionary underground channel with its active cooling was therefore
deemed redundant, as the fuel was self-cooling. The excavation was then simply filled with
concrete to strengthen the foundation below the reactor.[86]

Immediate site and area remediation

Debris removal
In the months after the explosion, attention turned to removing the radioactive debris from the
roof.[87] While the worst of the radioactive debris had remained inside what was left of the reactor,
it was estimated that there was approximately 100 tons of debris on that roof which had to be
removed to enable the safe construction of the "sarcophagus"—a concrete structure that would
entomb the reactor and reduce radioactive dust being released into the atmosphere.[87] The initial
plan was to use robots to clear the debris off the roof. The Soviets used approximately 60 remote-
controlled robots, most of them built in the Soviet Union itself. Many failed due to the difficult
terrain, combined with the effect of high radiation fields on their batteries and electronic controls.
[87] In 1987, Valery Legasov, first deputy director of the Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy in

Moscow, said: "We learned that robots are not the great remedy for everything. Where there was
very high radiation, the robot ceased to be a robot—the electronics quit working."[88]

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Consequently, the most highly radioactive materials were shoveled by Chernobyl liquidators from
the military wearing heavy protective gear (dubbed "bio-robots"). These soldiers could only spend
a maximum of 40–90 seconds working on the rooftops of the surrounding buildings because of the
extremely high doses of radiation given off by the blocks of graphite and other debris. Only 10% of
the debris cleared from the roof was performed by robots; the other 90% was removed by
3,828 men who absorbed, on average, an estimated dose of 25 rem (250 mSv) of radiation each.[87]

Construction of the sarcophagus

With the extinguishing of the open air reactor fire, the
next step was to prevent the spread of contamination.
This could be due to wind action which could carry away
loose contamination, and by birds which could land
within the wreckage and then carry contamination
elsewhere. In addition, rainwater could wash
contamination away from the reactor area and into the
sub-surface water table, where it could migrate outside
the site area. Rainwater falling on the wreckage could also
weaken the remaining reactor structure by accelerating
No. 4 reactor site in 2006 showing the
corrosion of steelwork. A further challenge was to reduce sarcophagus containment structure;
the large amount of emitted gamma radiation, which was Reactor No. 3 is to the left of the smoke
a hazard to the workforce operating the adjacent reactor stack
No. 3.

The solution chosen was to enclose the wrecked reactor by the construction of a huge composite
steel and concrete shelter, which became known as the "Sarcophagus". It had to be erected quickly
and within the constraints of high levels of ambient gamma radiation. The design started on 20
May 1986, 24 days after the disaster, and construction was from June to late November.[89] This
major construction project was carried out under the very difficult circumstances of high levels of
radiation both from the core remnants and the deposited radioactive contamination around it.

The construction workers had to be protected from radiation, and techniques such as crane drivers
working from lead-lined control cabins were employed. The construction work included erecting
walls around the perimeter, clearing and surface concreting the surrounding ground to remove
sources of radiation and to allow access for large construction machinery, constructing a thick
radiation shielding wall to protect the workers in reactor No. 3, fabricating a high-rise buttress to
strengthen weak parts of the old structure, constructing an overall roof, and provisioning a
ventilation extract system to capture any airborne contamination arising within the shelter.

Investigations of the reactor condition

During the construction of the sarcophagus, a scientific team, as part of an investigation dubbed
"Complex Expedition", re-entered the reactor to locate and contain nuclear fuel to prevent another
explosion. These scientists manually collected cold fuel rods, but great heat was still emanating
from the core. Rates of radiation in different parts of the building were monitored by drilling holes

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into the reactor and inserting long metal detector tubes. The scientists were exposed to high levels
of radiation and radioactive dust.[52]

In December 1986, after six months of investigation, the team discovered with the help of a remote
camera that an intensely radioactive mass more than 2 metres (6 ft 7 in) wide had formed in the
basement of Unit Four. The mass was called "the elephant's foot" for its wrinkled appearance.[90] It
was composed of melted sand, concrete, and a large amount of nuclear fuel that had escaped from
the reactor. The concrete beneath the reactor was steaming hot, and was breached by now-
solidified lava and spectacular unknown crystalline forms termed chernobylite. It was concluded
that there was no further risk of explosion.[52]

Area cleanup
The official contaminated zones saw a massive clean-up
effort lasting seven months.[60]: 177–183 The official reason
for such early (and dangerous) decontamination efforts,
rather than allowing time for natural decay, was that the
land must be repopulated and brought back into
cultivation. Within fifteen months 75% of the land was
under cultivation, even though only a third of the
evacuated villages were resettled. Defence forces must
have done much of the work. Yet this land was of
marginal agricultural value. According to historian David
Soviet badge and medal awarded to
Marples, the administration had a psychological purpose
Chernobyl liquidators
for the clean-up: they wished to forestall panic regarding
nuclear energy, and even to restart the Chernobyl power
station.[60]: 78–79, 87, 192–193

Helicopters regularly sprayed large areas of contaminated land with "Barda", a sticky polymerizing
fluid, designed to entrap radioactive dust.[91]

Although a number of radioactive emergency vehicles were buried in trenches, many of the vehicles
used by the liquidators, including the helicopters, still remained, as of 2018, parked in a field in the
Chernobyl area. Scavengers have since removed many functioning, but highly radioactive, parts.
[92] Liquidators worked under deplorable conditions, poorly informed and with poor protection.

Many, if not most of them, exceeded radiation safety limits.[60]: 177–183 [93]

A unique "clean up" medal was given to the clean-up workers, known as "liquidators".[94]

Investigations and the evolution of identified causes

To investigate the causes of the accident the IAEA used the International Nuclear Safety Advisory
Group (INSAG), which had been created by the IAEA in 1985.[95] It produced two significant
reports on Chernobyl; INSAG-1 in 1986, and a revised report, INSAG-7 in 1992. In summary,
according to INSAG-1, the main cause of the accident was the operators' actions, but according to

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INSAG-7, the main cause was the reactor's design.[23]: 24 [96] Both IAEA reports identified an
inadequate "safety culture" (INSAG-1 coined the term) at all managerial and operational levels as a
major underlying factor of different aspects of the accident. This was stated to be inherent not only
in operations but also during design, engineering, construction, manufacture and regulation.
[23]: 21, 24

Fizzled nuclear explosion hypothesis

The force of the second explosion and the ratio of xenon radioisotopes released after the accident
led Sergei A. Pakhomov and Yuri V. Dubasov in 2009 to theorize that the second explosion could
have been an extremely fast nuclear power transient resulting from core material melting in the
absence of its water coolant and moderator. Pakhomov and Dubasov argued that there was no
delayed supercritical increase in power but a runaway prompt criticality which would have
developed much faster. He felt the physics of this would be more similar to the explosion of a
fizzled nuclear weapon, and it produced the second explosion.[97]

Their evidence came from Cherepovets, a city 1,000 kilometres (620 mi) northeast of Chernobyl,
where physicists from the V.G. Khlopin Radium Institute measured anomalous high levels of
xenon-135—a short half-life isotope—four days after the explosion. This meant that a nuclear event
in the reactor may have ejected xenon to higher altitudes in the atmosphere than the later fire did,
allowing widespread movement of xenon to remote locations.[98] This was an alternative to the
more accepted explanation of a positive-feedback power excursion where the reactor disassembled
itself by steam explosion.[23][97]

The energy released by the second explosion, which produced the majority of the damage, was
estimated by Pakhomov and Dubasov to be at 40 billion joules, the equivalent of about 10 tons of
TNT.[97]

Pakhomov and Dubasov's nuclear fizzle hypothesis was examined in 2017 by Lars-Erik De Geer,
Christer Persson and Henning Rodhe, who put the hypothesized fizzle event as the more probable
cause of the first explosion.[45]:11 [99][100] Both analyses argue that the nuclear fizzle event, whether
producing the second or first explosion, consisted of a prompt chain reaction that was limited to a
small portion of the reactor core, since self-disassembly occurs rapidly in fizzle events.[97][45]

De Geer, Persson and Rodhe commented:

We believe that thermal neutron mediated nuclear explosions at the bottom of a number
of fuel channels in the reactor caused a jet of debris to shoot upwards through the
refuelling tubes. This jet then rammed the tubes' 350kg plugs, continued through the roof
and travelled into the atmosphere to altitudes of 2.5–3km where the weather conditions
provided a route to Cherepovets. The steam explosion which ruptured the reactor vessel
occurred some 2.7 seconds later.[98]

This second explosion was estimated by the authors to have had the power equivalent of 225 tons

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of TNT.[45]

Release and spread of radioactive materials

Although it is difficult to compare releases between the Chernobyl accident and a deliberate air
burst nuclear detonation, it has nevertheless been estimated that about four hundred times more
radioactive material was released from Chernobyl than by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki together. However, the Chernobyl accident only released about one hundredth to one
thousandth of the total amount of radioactivity released during nuclear weapons testing at the
height of the Cold War; the wide estimate being due to the different abundances of isotopes
released.[101]

At Chernobyl, approximately 100,000 square kilometres (39,000 sq mi) of land was significantly
contaminated with fallout, with the worst hit regions being in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia.[102]
Lower levels of contamination were detected over all of Europe except for the Iberian Peninsula.
[103][104][105] Most of the fallout with radioactive dust particles was released during the first ten

days after the accident. By around 2 May, a radioactive cloud had reached the Netherlands and
Belgium.

The initial evidence that a major release of radioactive material was affecting other countries came
not from Soviet sources, but from Sweden. On the morning of 28 April,[106] workers at the
Forsmark Nuclear Power Plant in central Sweden (approximately 1,100 km (680 mi) from the
Chernobyl site) were found to have radioactive particles on their clothes, except they had this
whenever they came to work rather than when exiting.[107]

It was Sweden's elevated radioactivity level, detected at noon on 28 April that, having been
determined as not caused by a leak at the Swedish plant, first suggested a serious nuclear problem
originating from the western Soviet Union. The evacuation of Pripyat on 27 April had been silently
completed without the disaster being declared outside the Soviet Union. A rise in radiation levels in
the subsequent days had also been measured in Finland, but a civil service strike delayed the
response and publication.[108]

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Areas of Europe contaminated with 137Cs[109]

37–185 kBq/m2 185–555 kBq/m2 555–1,480 kBq/m2 > 1,480 kBq/m2

Country
% of % of % of % of
km2 country
km2 country
km2 country
km2 country

Belarus 29,900 14.4 10,200 4.9 4,200 2.0 2,200 1.1

Ukraine 37,200 6.2 3,200 0.53 900 0.15 600 0.1
Russia 49,800 0.3 5,700 0.03 2,100 0.01 300 0.002
Sweden 12,000 2.7 — — — — — —
Finland 11,500 3.4 — — — — — —
Austria 8,600 10.3 — — — — — —
Norway 5,200 1.3 — — — — — —
Bulgaria 4,800 4.3 — — — — — —
Switzerland 1,300 3.1 — — — — — —
Greece 1,200 0.9 — — — — — —
Slovenia 300 1.5 — — — — — —
Italy 300 0.1 — — — — — —
Moldova 60 0.2 — — — — — —

Totals 162,160 km2 19,100 km2 7,200 km2 3,100 km2

Contamination from the Chernobyl accident was scattered irregularly depending on weather
conditions, much of it deposited on mountainous regions such as the Alps, the Welsh mountains
and the Scottish Highlands, where adiabatic cooling caused radioactive rainfall. The resulting
patches of contamination were often highly localized, and localized water-flows contributed to
large variations in radioactivity over small areas. Sweden and Norway also received heavy fallout
when the contaminated air collided with a cold front, bringing rain.[110]: 43–44, 78 There was also
groundwater contamination.

Rain was deliberately seeded over 10,000 square kilometres (3,900 sq mi) of Belarus by the Soviet
Air Force to remove radioactive particles from clouds heading toward highly populated areas.
Heavy, black-coloured rain fell on the city of Gomel.[111] Reports from Soviet and Western
scientists indicate that the Belarusian SSR received about 60% of the contamination that fell on the
former Soviet Union. However, the 2006 TORCH report stated that up to half of the volatile
particles had actually landed outside the former USSR area currently making up Ukraine, Belarus,
and Russia. An unconnected large area in Russian SFSR south of Bryansk was also contaminated,
as were parts of northwestern Ukrainian SSR. Studies in surrounding countries indicate that more
than one million people could have been affected by radiation.[112]

2016 data from a long-term monitoring program (The Korma Report II)[113] showed a decrease in
internal radiation exposure of the inhabitants of a region in Belarus close to Gomel. Resettlement
may now be possible in prohibited areas provided that people comply with appropriate dietary
rules.

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In Western Europe, precautionary measures taken in response to the radiation included banning
the importation of certain foods. A 2006 study by the French society for nuclear energy found that
contamination was "relatively limited, diminishing from west to east", such that a hunter
consuming 40 kilograms of contaminated wild boar in 1997 would be exposed to about one
millisievert.[114]

Relative isotopic abundances

The Chernobyl release was characterized by the physical and chemical properties of the radio-
isotopes in the core. Particularly dangerous were the highly radioactive fission products, those with
high nuclear decay rates that accumulate in the food chain, such as some of the isotopes of iodine,
caesium and strontium. Iodine-131 was and caesium-137 remains the two most responsible for the
radiation exposure received by the general population.[2]

Detailed reports on the release of radioisotopes from the site were published in 1989[115] and 1995,
[116] with the latter report updated in 2002.[2]

At different times after the accident,

different isotopes were responsible for the
majority of the external dose. The remaining
quantity of any radioisotope, and therefore
the activity of that isotope, after 7 decay half-
lives have passed, is less than 1% of its initial
magnitude,[117] and it continues to reduce
beyond 0.78% after 7 half-lives to 0.10%
remaining after 10 half-lives have passed and
so on.[118][119] Some radionuclides have
decay products that are likewise radioactive,
which is not accounted for here. The release
Contributions of the various isotopes to the atmospheric
of radioisotopes from the nuclear fuel was
absorbed dose in the contaminated area of Pripyat, from
largely controlled by their boiling points, and soon after the accident to 27 years after the accident
the majority of the radioactivity present in
the core was retained in the reactor.

▪ All of the noble gases, including krypton and xenon, contained within the reactor were released
immediately into the atmosphere by the first steam explosion.[2] The atmospheric release of
xenon-133, with a half-life of 5 days, is estimated at 5200 PBq.[2]
▪ 50 to 60% of all core radioiodine in the reactor, about 1760 PBq (1760 × 1015 becquerels), or
about 0.4 kilograms (0.88 lb), was released, as a mixture of sublimed vapour, solid particles,
and organic iodine compounds. Iodine-131 has a half-life of 8 days.[2]
▪ 20 to 40% of all core caesium-137 was released, 85 PBq in all.[2][120] Caesium was released in
aerosol form; caesium-137, along with isotopes of strontium, are the two primary elements
preventing the Chernobyl exclusion zone being re-inhabited.[121] 8.5 × 1016 Bq equals 24
kilograms of caesium-137.[121] Cs-137 has a half-life of 30 years.[2]
▪ Tellurium-132, half-life 78 hours, an estimated 1150 PBq was released.[2]
▪ An early estimate for total nuclear fuel material released to the environment was 3 ± 1.5%; this

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was later revised to 3.5 ± 0.5%. This

corresponds to the atmospheric emission
of 6 tonnes (5.9 long tons; 6.6 short tons)
of fragmented fuel.[116]
Two sizes of particles were released: small
particles of 0.3 to 1.5 micrometres, each an
individually unrecognizable small dust or
smog sized particulate matter and larger
settling dust sized particles that therefore
were quicker to fall-out of the air, of 10
micrometres in diameter. These larger
particles contained about 80% to 90% of the
released high boiling point or non-volatile Logarithmic scaled graph of the external relative gamma
radioisotopes; zirconium-95, niobium-95, dose for a person in the open near the disaster site
lanthanum-140, cerium-144 and the
transuranic elements, including neptunium,
plutonium and the minor actinides, embedded in a uranium oxide matrix.

The dose that was calculated is the relative external gamma dose rate for a person standing in the
open. The exact dose to a person in the real world who would spend most of their time sleeping
indoors in a shelter and then venturing out to consume an internal dose from the inhalation or
ingestion of a radioisotope, requires a personnel specific radiation dose reconstruction analysis and
whole body count exams, of which 16,000 were conducted in Ukraine by Soviet medical personnel
in 1987.[122]

Environmental impact

Water bodies
The Chernobyl nuclear power plant is located next to the Pripyat River, which feeds into the
Dnieper reservoir system, one of the largest surface water systems in Europe, which at the time
supplied water to Kiev's 2.4 million residents, and was still in spring flood when the accident
occurred.[60]: 60 The radioactive contamination of aquatic systems therefore became a major
problem in the immediate aftermath of the accident.[123]

In the most affected areas of Ukraine, levels of radioactivity (particularly from radionuclides 131I,
137Cs and 90Sr) in drinking water caused concern during the weeks and months after the accident.
[123] Guidelines for levels of radioiodine in drinking water were temporarily raised to 3,700 Bq/L,

allowing most water to be reported as safe.[123] Officially it was stated that all contaminants had
settled to the bottom "in an insoluble phase" and would not dissolve for 800–1000 years.[60]: 64 A
year after the accident it was announced that even the water of the Chernobyl plant's cooling pond
was within acceptable norms. Despite this, two months after the disaster the Kiev water supply was
switched from the Dnieper to the Desna River.[60]: 64–65 Meanwhile, massive silt traps were
constructed, along with an enormous 30-metre (98 ft) deep underground barrier to prevent

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groundwater from the destroyed

reactor entering the Pripyat River.
[60]: 65–67

Groundwater was not badly affected

by the Chernobyl accident since
radionuclides with short half-lives
decayed away long before they could
affect groundwater supplies, and
longer-lived radionuclides such as
radiocaesium and radiostrontium
were adsorbed to surface soils before
they could transfer to groundwater.
[124] However, significant transfers of
Reactor and surrounding area in April 2009
radionuclides to groundwater have
occurred from waste disposal sites in
the 30 km (19 mi) exclusion zone around Chernobyl. Although there is a potential for transfer of
radionuclides from these disposal sites off-site (i.e. out of the 30 km (19 mi) exclusion zone), the
IAEA Chernobyl Report[124] argues that this is not significant in comparison to current levels of
washout of surface-deposited radioactivity.

Bio-accumulation of radioactivity in fish[125] resulted in concentrations (both in western Europe

and in the former Soviet Union) that in many cases were significantly above guideline maximum
levels for consumption.[123] Guideline maximum levels for radiocaesium in fish vary from country
to country but are approximately 1000 Bq/kg in the European Union.[126] In the Kiev Reservoir in
Ukraine, concentrations in fish were in the range of 3000 Bq/kg during the first few years after the
accident.[125]

In small "closed" lakes in Belarus and the Bryansk region of Russia, concentrations in a number of
fish species varied from 100 to 60,000 Bq/kg during the period 1990–1992.[127] The
contamination of fish caused short-term concern in parts of the UK and Germany and in the long
term (years rather than months) in the affected areas of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia as well as in
parts of Scandinavia.[123]

Chernobyl's radiocaesium deposits were used to calibrate sedimentation samples from Lake
137
Qattinah in Syria. The 55Cs provides a sharp, maximal, data point in radioactivity of the core
210
sample at the 1986 depth, and acts as a date check on the depth of the 82Pb in the core sample.
[128]

Flora, fauna, and funga

After the disaster, four square kilometres (1.5 sq mi) of pine forest directly downwind of the reactor
turned reddish-brown and died, earning the name of the "Red Forest".[129] Some animals in the
worst-hit areas also died or stopped reproducing. Most domestic animals were removed from the
exclusion zone, but horses left on an island in the Pripyat River 6 km (4 mi) from the power plant

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died when their thyroid

glands were destroyed by
radiation doses of 150–
200 Sv.[130] Some cattle
on the same island died
and those that survived
were stunted because of
thyroid damage. The next
generation appeared to be
normal.[130] The mutation
rates for plants and
animals have increased by
a factor of 20 because of
the release of
radionuclides from
Chernobyl. There is
evidence for elevated
mortality rates and
increased rates of
reproductive failure in
contaminated areas,
consistent with the
expected frequency of
deaths due to mutations.
[131]
Radiation levels around Chernobyl in 1996

On farms in Narodychi
Raion of Ukraine it is claimed that from 1986 to
1990 nearly 350 animals were born with gross
deformities such as missing or extra limbs,
missing eyes, heads or ribs, or deformed skulls; in
comparison, only three abnormal births had been
registered in the five years prior.[132]

Subsequent research on microorganisms, while

limited, suggests that in the aftermath of the
disaster, bacterial and viral specimens exposed to
the radiation (including Mycobacterium
tuberculosis, herpesvirus, cytomegalovirus,
hepatitis-causing viruses, and tobacco mosaic Piglet with dipygus on exhibit at the Ukrainian
National Chernobyl Museum
virus) underwent rapid changes.[133] Activations of
soil micromycetes have been reported.[133] It is
currently unclear how these changes in species with rapid reproductive turnover (which were not
destroyed by the radiation but instead survived) will manifest in terms of virulence, drug
resistance, immune evasion, and so on. A paper in 1998 reported the discovery of an Escherichia

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coli mutant that was hyper-resistant to a variety of DNA-damaging elements, including x-ray
radiation, UV-C, and 4-nitroquinoline 1-oxide (4NQO).[134] Cladosporium sphaerospermum, a
species of fungus that has thrived in the Chernobyl contaminated area, has been investigated for
the purpose of using the fungus' particular melanin to protect against high-radiation
environments, such as space travel.[135] The disaster has been described by lawyers, academics and
journalists as an example of ecocide.[136][137][138][139]

Human food chain

With radiocaesium binding less with humic acid, peaty soils than the known binding "fixation" that
occurs on kaolinite rich clay soils, many marshy areas of Ukraine had the highest soil to dairy-milk
transfer coefficients, of soil activity in ~ 200 kBq/m2 to dairy milk activity in Bq/L, that had ever
been reported, with the transfer, from initial land activity into milk activity, ranging from 0.3−2 to
20−2 times that which was on the soil, a variance depending on the natural acidity-conditioning of
the pasture.[122]

In 1987, Soviet medical teams conducted some 16,000 whole-body count examinations on
inhabitants in otherwise comparatively lightly contaminated regions with good prospects for
recovery. This was to determine the effect of banning local food and using only food imports on the
internal body burden of radionuclides in inhabitants. Concurrent agricultural countermeasures
were used when cultivation did occur, to further reduce the soil to human transfer as much as
possible. The expected highest body activity was in the first few years, where the unabated
ingestion of local food (primarily milk) resulted in the transfer of activity from soil to body. After
the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the now reduced scale initiative to monitor human body
activity in these regions of Ukraine recorded a small and gradual half-decade-long rise in internal
committed dose before returning to the previous trend of observing ever lower body counts each
year.

This momentary rise is hypothesized to be due to the cessation of the Soviet food imports together
with many villagers returning to older dairy food cultivation practices and large increases in wild
berry and mushroom foraging, the latter of which have similar peaty soil to fruiting body,
radiocaesium transfer coefficients.[122]

In a 2007 paper, a robot sent into the No. 4 reactor returned with samples of black, melanin-rich
radiotrophic fungi that grow on the reactor's walls.[142]

Of the 440,350 wild boar killed in the 2010 hunting season in Germany, approximately one
thousand were contaminated with levels of radiation above the permitted limit of 600 becquerels
of caesium per kilogram, of dry weight, due to residual radioactivity from Chernobyl.[143] While all
animal meat contains a natural level of potassium-40 at a similar level of activity, with both wild
and farm animals in Italy containing "415 ± 56 becquerels kg−1 dw" of that naturally occurring
gamma emitter.[144]

Because Elaphomyces fungal species bioaccumulate radiocaesium, boars of the Bavarian Forest
that consume these "deer truffles" are contaminated at higher levels than their environment's soil.
[145] Given that nuclear weapons release a higher 135C/137C ratio than nuclear reactors, the high

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135C content in these boars suggests that their radiological

contamination can be largely attributed to the Soviet Union's
nuclear weapons testing in Ukraine, which peaked during the
late 1950s and early 1960s.[146]

In 2015, long-term empirical data showed no evidence of a

negative influence of radiation on mammal abundance.[147]

Precipitation on distant high ground

On high ground, such as mountain ranges, there is increased
precipitation due to adiabatic cooling. This resulted in localized
concentrations of contaminants on distant areas; higher in Bq/
m2 values to many lowland areas much closer to the source of
the plume. This effect occurred on high ground in Norway and After the disaster, four square
the UK. kilometres (1.5 sq mi) of pine forest
directly downwind of the reactor
turned reddish-brown and died,
Norway earning the name of the "Red
The Norwegian Agricultural Authority reported that in 2009, a Forest", though it soon recovered.
[129] This photograph was taken
total of 18,000 livestock in Norway required uncontaminated
years later, in March 2009,[140] after
feed for a period before slaughter, to ensure that their meat had the forest began to grow again, with
an activity below the government permitted value of caesium the lack of foliage at the time of the
per kilogram deemed suitable for human consumption. This photograph merely due to the local
contamination was due to residual radioactivity from winter at the time.[141]
Chernobyl in the mountain plants they graze on in the wild
during the summer. 1,914 sheep required uncontaminated feed
for a time before slaughter during 2012, with these sheep located in only 18 of Norway's
municipalities, a decrease from the 35 municipalities in 2011 and the 117 municipalities affected
during 1986.[148] The after-effects of Chernobyl on the mountain lamb industry in Norway were
expected to be seen for a further 100 years, although the severity of the effects would decline over
that period.[149] Scientists report this is due to radioactive caesium-137 isotopes being taken up by
fungi such as Cortinarius caperatus which is in turn eaten by sheep while grazing.[148]

United Kingdom
The United Kingdom restricted the movement of sheep from upland areas when radioactive
caesium-137 fell across parts of Northern Ireland, Wales, Scotland, and northern England. In the
immediate aftermath of the disaster in 1986, the movement of a total of 4,225,000 sheep was
restricted across a total of 9,700 farms, to prevent contaminated meat entering the human food
chain.[150] The number of sheep and the number of farms affected has decreased since 1986.
Northern Ireland was released from all restrictions in 2000, and by 2009, 369 farms containing
around 190,000 sheep remained under the restrictions in Wales, Cumbria, and northern Scotland.
[150] The restrictions applying in Scotland were lifted in 2010, while those applying to Wales and

Cumbria were lifted during 2012, meaning no farms in the UK remain restricted because of
Chernobyl fallout.[151][152]

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The legislation used to control sheep movement and compensate farmers (farmers were latterly
compensated per animal to cover additional costs in holding animals prior to radiation
monitoring) was revoked during October and November 2012, by the relevant authorities in the
UK.[153] Had restrictions in the UK not occurred, a heavy consumer of lamb meat would likely have
received a dose of 4.1 mSv over a lifetime.[154]

Human impact

Acute radiation effects and

immediate aftermath
The only known, causal deaths from
the accident involved workers in the
plant and firefighters. The reactor
explosion killed two engineers and
burned two others, among the 237
workers hospitalized. 134 of those
exhibited symptoms of acute
radiation syndrome, including one
disputed case. 28 died within three
months, all of whom were
hospitalized for ARS and 26 were
among the 56 patients hospitalized Pripyat lies abandoned with the Chernobyl facility visible in the
for burns. Among the fatalities in the distance

acute phase (approximately three

months), all but one were hospitalized for grade 3 or 4 ARS. 15 out of 22 with grade 3 ARS
survived. Only one out of 21 with grade 4 ARS survived.[10]

Some sources report a total initial fatality of 31,[155][156] which includes one additional death
caused by coronary thrombosis attributed to stress or coincidence, but this occurred off-site.[10]

There were fishermen on the reservoir a half-kilometer from the reactor to the east. Of these, two
shore fishermen, Protosov and Pustavoit, are said to have sustained doses estimated at
400 roentgens and vomited, but survived.[55] The majority of Pripyat residents slept through the
distant sound of the explosion, including station engineer Breus, who only became aware at 6 a.m.,
the beginning of his shift. He was later taken to hospital and, while there, made the acquaintance of
a teen who had ventured out alone by bike to watch the roof fires during the night, stopping and
viewing the scene at the "Bridge of Death" 51.3949°N 30.0695°E. The cyclist was treated and
released from hospital, remaining in touch with Breus as of 2019.[157][158][159]

Most serious cases of ARS were treated with the assistance of American specialist Robert Peter
Gale, who documented a first of its kind treatment and supervized bone marrow transplant
procedures which were unsuccessful.[160][161] In 2019, Gale wrote a letter to correct the

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popularized, though egregious,

portrayal of his patients as dangerous
to visitors.[162] All those who died
were station operators and
firefighters, over half of which were
from the continued wearing of dusty
soaked uniforms, causing beta burns
to cover large areas of skin. In the
first few minutes to days, the beta-to-
gamma energy ratio is some 30:1.[163]
[164][165] Owing to the large area of

burned skin and sensitivity of the

gastrointestinal tract, bacterial
infection was and remains the
overarching concern to those affected
with ARS, as a leading cause of death,
quarantine from the outside
environment is a part of the normal
treatment protocol. Many surviving
firefighters, continue to have skin
that is atrophied, spider veined with
underlying fibrosis due to
Radiation exposure to first responders at Chernobyl in comparison
experiencing extensive beta burns. to a range of situations, from normal activities up to nuclear
[165]
accident. Each step up the scale indicates a tenfold increase in
radiation level.

Long-term impact
In the 10 years following the accident, 14 more people who had been initially hospitalized died of
various causes mostly unrelated to radiation exposure. Only two were the result of myelodysplastic
syndrome.[10] Scientific consensus, in the form of the Chernobyl Forum, suggests that, although
unexpected, there has been no statistically significant increase in the incidence rate of solid cancers
among rescue workers.[166] Follow-up studies have found this to be the case, with apparent
increases in thyroid cancer simply attributed to more meticulous cancer screening for rescue
workers.[167]

Childhood thyroid cancer is an exception, with approximately 4,000 new incidents in the general
population by 2002 within contaminated regions of Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine, most of which
are attributed to high environmental levels of radioactive iodine shortly after the accident. The
recovery rate is ~99%, with only 15 terminal cases (9 deaths) at the time of the report.[166] There
has been no increase in mutation rate among children of the liquidators or general population
living in the contaminated areas.[168][169] From this same report is a commonly cited estimate for
potential future cancer fatalities which speculated that, at worst, ~4,000 additional cancer-related
fatalities were to be expected.[166]

Psychosomatic illness and post-traumatic stress, resulting from widespread fear of radiological

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disease, is a greater issue impacting many more with lethal health effects, especially as it receives
relatively little attention. People who believe they or others have been impacted by radiological
illness, erroneous or otherwise, exhibit greater issues with feelings of no control or fatalistic/
pessimistic outlooks, leading to harmful behaviors, such as a lack of initiative to treat diseases.
Such fears are strengthened by poor public understanding of the effects of radiation.[170][166]

Whether the area was publicly announced as a contaminated area is a better predictor of general
health than the contamination itself. "Resettlement status" is an even stronger predictor: the
residents of contaminated regions who were evacuated and resettled into uncontaminated regions
can be compared with the residents who remained in the contaminated regions. Resettled citizens
erroneously believed they had an illness, related to radiation exposure, more often than citizens
who remained in the contaminated regions. This brings into question the effectiveness of
resettlement.[170]

By 2000, the number of Ukrainians claiming to be radiation "sufferers" and receiving state benefits
had jumped to 3.5 million, or 5% of the population. Many are populations resettled from
contaminated zones or former or current Chernobyl plant workers.[93]: 4–5 There was and remains
a motivated "push" to achieve "sufferer" status as it gives access to state benefits and medical
services otherwise not available.[171] The apparent increases of ill health in this large group result
partly from increased medical vigilance following the accident; many benign cases that would
previously have gone unnoticed and untreated (especially cancer) are now recorded.[102]

Of all 66,000 Belarusian emergency workers, by the mid-1990s their government reported that 150
(roughly 0.2%) died. In contrast, in the much larger work force from Ukraine, in the hundreds of
thousands, some 5,722 casualties from a host of non-accident causes, were reported among
Ukrainian clean-up workers up to 1995, by the National Committee for Radiation Protection of the
Ukrainian Population.[102][172] In September 1987, the IAEA held an Advisory Group Meeting at
the Curie Institute in Paris on the medical handling of the skin lesions relating to the acute deaths.
[173]

Effects of main harmful radionuclides

The four most harmful radionuclides spread from Chernobyl were iodine-131, caesium-134,
caesium-137 and strontium-90, with half-lives of 8 days, 2.07 years, 30.2 years and 28.8 years
respectively.[174]: 8 The iodine was initially viewed with less alarm than the other isotopes, because
of its short half-life, but it is highly volatile and appears to have travelled furthest and caused the
most severe health problems.[102]: 24 Strontium is the least volatile and of main concern in the
areas near Chernobyl.[174]:8

Iodine tends to become concentrated in thyroid and milk glands, leading, among other things, to
increased incidence of thyroid cancers. The total ingested dose was largely from iodine and, unlike
the other fission products, rapidly found its way from dairy farms to human ingestion.[175]
Similarly in dose reconstruction, for those evacuated at different times and from various towns, the
inhalation dose was dominated by iodine (40%), along with airborne tellurium (20%) and oxides of
rubidium (20%) both as equally secondary, appreciable contributors.[176]

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Long term hazards such as caesium tends to accumulate in vital organs such as the heart,[177] while
strontium accumulates in bones and may be a risk to bone-marrow and lymphocytes.[174]: 8
Radiation is most damaging to cells that are actively dividing. In adult mammals cell division is
slow, except in hair follicles, skin, bone marrow and the gastrointestinal tract, which is why
vomiting and hair loss are common symptoms of acute radiation sickness.[178]: 42

Disputed investigation
The two primary individuals involved with the attempt to suggest that the mutation rate among
animals was, and continues to be, higher in the Chernobyl zone, are the Anders Moller and
Timothy Mousseau group.[179][180][181][182] Apart from continuing to publish experimentally
unrepeatable and discredited papers, Mousseau gives talks at symposiums for "Physicians for
Social Responsibility", an anti-nuclear advocacy group devoted to bring about a "nuclear free
planet".[183] Moller has been reprimanded for publishing papers that crossed the scientific
"misconduct"/"fraud" line.[184] The duo have more attempted to publish meta-analyses, in which
the primary references they analyse and draw their conclusions from is their own papers along
with the discredited book Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the
Environment.[185]

Withdrawn investigation
In 1996, geneticist Ronald Chesser and Robert Baker published a paper[186] on the thriving vole
population within the exclusion zone, in which the central conclusion of their work was essentially
that "The mutation rate in these animals is hundreds and probably thousands of times greater than
normal". This claim occurred after they had done a comparison of the mitochondrial DNA of the
"Chernobyl voles" with that of a control group of voles from outside the region.[187] The authors
discovered they had incorrectly classified the species of vole and were genetically comparing two
entirely different vole species. They issued a retraction in 1997.[179][188][189]

Abortions
Following the accident, journalists mistrusted many medical professionals and in turn encouraged
the public to mistrust them.[190] Throughout the European continent, due to this media-driven
framing of the contamination, requests for induced abortions of otherwise normal pregnancies
were obtained out of fears of radiation.

Worldwide, an estimated excess of about 150,000 elective abortions may have been performed on
otherwise healthy pregnancies out of fears of radiation, according to Robert Baker and a 1987
article by Linda E. Ketchum in the Journal of Nuclear Medicine which mentions but does not
reference an IAEA source.[190][191][192][193][194][195]

The statistical data excludes the Soviet–Ukraine–Belarus abortion rates, as they are unavailable.
From the available data, an increase in abortions in what were healthy developing human offspring
in Denmark occurred in the months following the accident, at a rate of about 400 cases.[191] In
Greece, following the accident, many obstetricians were unable to resist requests from worried

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pregnant mothers over fears of radiation. Although it was determined that the effective dose to
Greeks would not exceed one mSv (100 mrem), a dose much lower than that which it was
determined would induce embryonic abnormalities or other non-stochastic effects, there was an
observed 2,500 increase of otherwise wanted pregnancies being terminated.[192]

No evidence of changes in the prevalence of human deformities/birth congenital anomalies that

might be associated with the accident are apparent in Belarus or Ukraine, the two republics that
had the highest exposure to fallout.[196] In Sweden[197] and in Finland where no increase in
abortion rates occurred, it was likewise determined that "no association between the temporal and
spatial variations in radioactivity and variable incidence of congenital malformations [was
found]."[198]

Larger "mainly western European" data sets, approaching a million births in the EUROCAT
database, divided into "exposed" and control groups were assessed in 1999. As no Chernobyl
impacts were detected, the researchers conclude "in retrospect, the widespread fear in the
population about the possible effects of exposure on the unborn fetus was not justified".[199]
Despite studies from Germany and Turkey, the only robust evidence of negative pregnancy
outcomes that transpired after the accident were these elective abortion indirect effects, in Greece,
Denmark, Italy etc., due to the anxieties created.[196]

In very high doses, it was known that radiation could cause a physiological increase in the rate of
pregnancy anomalies, but unlike the dominant linear no-threshold model of radiation and cancer
rate increases, it was known, by researchers familiar with both the prior human exposure data and
animal testing, that the "Malformation of organs appears to be a deterministic effect with a
threshold dose" below which, no rate increase is observed.[200] This teratology (birth defects) issue
was discussed by the Harvard Medical School in 1999, publishing a detailed review of dose
reconstructions and pregnancy data following the accident, inclusive of data from Kiev's largest
obstetrics hospitals.[200] It concludes that "the lay press with...reporters playing up anecdotal
stories of children with birth defects" is, together with dubious studies that show selection bias, the
primary factors causing the persistent belief Chernobyl increased the background rate of birth
defects. Pregnancy data does not support this perception as no women took part in the most
radioactive liquidator operations, no in-utero individuals would have been expected to have
received a threshold dose.[200]

Studies of low statistical significance on some of the most contaminated and proximal regions of
Ukraine and Belarus, tentatively argue with some 50 children who were irradiated by the accident
in utero during weeks 8 to 25 of gestation had an increased rate of intellectual disability, lower
verbal IQ, and possibly other negative effects. These findings may be due to confounding factors or
annual variations in random chance.[201]

The Chernobyl liquidators, essentially an all-male civil defense emergency workforce, would go on
to father normal children, without an increase in developmental anomalies or a statistically
significant increase in the frequencies of germline mutations in their progeny.[168] This normality
is similarly seen in the children of the survivors of the Goiânia accident.[202] A 2021 study based on
whole-genome sequencing of children of parents employed as liquidators indicated no trans-
generational genetic effects of exposure of parents to ionizing radiation.[203]

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Cancer assessments
A report by the International Atomic Energy Agency examines the environmental consequences of
the accident.[124] The United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation has
estimated a global collective dose of radiation exposure from the accident "equivalent on average to
21 additional days of world exposure to natural background radiation"; individual doses were far
higher than the global mean among those most exposed, including 530,000 primarily male
recovery workers (the Chernobyl liquidators) who averaged an effective dose equivalent to an extra
50 years of typical natural background radiation exposure each.[204][205][206]

Estimates of deaths that will eventually result from the accident vary enormously; disparities
reflect lack of solid scientific data and different methodologies used to quantify mortality—whether
the discussion is confined to specific geographical areas or extends worldwide, and whether the
deaths are immediate, short term, or long term. In 1994, thirty-one deaths were directly attributed
to the accident, all among the reactor staff and emergency workers.[155]

The Chernobyl Forum predicts that the eventual death toll could reach 4,000 among those exposed
to the highest levels of radiation (200,000 emergency workers, 116,000 evacuees and 270,000
residents of the most contaminated areas); this figure is a total causal death toll prediction,
combining the deaths of approximately 50 emergency workers who died soon after the accident
from acute radiation syndrome, 15 children who have died of thyroid cancer and a predicted total
of 3,935 deaths from radiation-induced cancer and leukaemia.[207]

In a paper in the International Journal of Cancer in 2006, the authors expanded the discussion on
those exposed to all of Europe they stated, without entering into a discussion on deaths, that in
terms of total excess cancers attributed to the accident:[208]

The risk projections suggest that by now [2006] Chernobyl may have caused about 1000
cases of thyroid cancer and 4000 cases of other cancers in Europe, representing about
0.01% of all incident cancers since the accident. Models predict that by 2065 about 16,000
cases of thyroid cancer and 25,000 cases of other cancers may be expected due to
radiation from the accident, whereas several hundred million cancer cases are expected
from other causes.

Anti-nuclear advocacy groups have publicized non-peer-reviewed estimates that include mortality
estimates for those who were exposed to even smaller amounts of radiation. The Union of
Concerned Scientists (UCS) calculated that, among the hundreds of millions of people exposed
worldwide, there will be an eventual 50,000 excess cancer cases, resulting in 25,000 excess cancer
deaths, excluding thyroid cancer.[209] However, these calculations are based on a simple linear no-
threshold model multiplication and the misapplication of the collective dose, which the
International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) states "should not be done" as using
the collective dose is "inappropriate to use in risk projections".[210] Along similar lines to the UCS
approach, the 2006 TORCH report, commissioned by the European Greens political party, likewise
simplistically calculates an eventual 30,000 to 60,000 excess cancer deaths in total, around the
globe.[103]

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Yet the death rate from thyroid

cancer has remained the same
as prior to the technology.[212]
For these and other reasons, it
is suggested that no reliable
increase has been detected in
the environs of Chernobyl, that
cannot otherwise be explained
as an artifact of the globally well
documented Screening effect.
[211] In 2004, the UN
collaborative, Chernobyl
Forum, revealed thyroid cancer
among children to be one of the
main health impacts from the
Chernobyl accident. This is due
to the ingestion of contaminated
dairy products, along with the Thyroid cancer incidence in children and adolescents in Belarus
inhalation of the short-lived, Adults, ages 19 to 34
highly radioactive isotope, Adolescents, ages 15 to 18
Iodine-131. In that publication, Children, ages up to 14
more than 4,000 cases of While widely regarded as having a cause and effect relationship, the
causality of Chernobyl with the increases in recorded rates of thyroid
childhood thyroid cancer were
cancer is disputed,[211] as in both the US and South Korea, upon the
reported. It is important to note
advent of ultrasonography and widespread medical screening, the latter
that there was no evidence of an recorded an almost identical epidemic in thyroid cancer rates, with South
increase in solid cancers or Korea reporting a 15 fold increase upon the switch of diagnostic tool, the
leukemia. It said that there was highest thyroid cancer rate in the world.[212]
an increase in psychological
problems among the affected
population.[213] The WHO's Radiation Program reported that the 4,000 cases of thyroid cancer
resulted in nine deaths.[207]

According to the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, up to the
year 2005, an excess of more than 6,000 cases of thyroid cancer had been reported. That is, over
the estimated pre-accident baseline thyroid cancer rate, more than 6,000 casual cases of thyroid
cancer have been reported in children and adolescents exposed at the time of the accident, a
number that is expected to increase. They concluded that there is no other evidence of major health
impacts from the radiation exposure.[214]

Well-differentiated thyroid cancers are generally treatable,[215] and when treated the five-year
survival rate of thyroid cancer is 96%, and 92% after 30 years.[216] the United Nations Scientific
Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation had reported 15 deaths from thyroid cancer in 2011.
[13] The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) also states that there has been no increase in

the rate of birth defects or abnormalities, or solid cancers—such as lung cancer—corroborating the
assessments by the UN committee.[213] UNSCEAR raised the possibility of long term genetic

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defects, pointing to a doubling of radiation-induced minisatellite mutations among children born

in 1994.[217] However, the risk of thyroid cancer associated with the Chernobyl accident is still high
according to published studies.[218][219]

The German affiliate of the anti-nuclear energy organization,[220] the International Physicians for
the Prevention of Nuclear War suggest that 10,000 people are affected by thyroid cancer as of
2006, and that 50,000 cases are expected in the future.[221]

Other disorders
Fred Mettler, a radiation expert at the University of New Mexico, puts the number of worldwide
cancer deaths outside the highly contaminated zone at perhaps 5,000, for a total of
9,000 Chernobyl-associated fatal cancers, saying "the number is small (representing a few percent)
relative to the normal spontaneous risk of cancer, but the numbers are large in absolute terms".
[222] The same report outlined studies based on data found in the Russian Registry from 1991 to

1998 that suggested that "of 61,000 Russian workers exposed to an average dose of 107 mSv about
[five percent] of all fatalities that occurred may have been due to radiation exposure".[213]

The report went into depth about the risks to mental health of exaggerated fears about the effects
of radiation.[213] According to the IAEA the "designation of the affected population as 'victims'
rather than 'survivors' has led them to perceive themselves as helpless, weak and lacking control
over their future". The IAEA says that this may have led to behaviour that has caused further health
effects.[223]

Fred Mettler commented that 20 years later: "The population remains largely unsure of what the
effects of radiation actually are and retain a sense of foreboding. A number of adolescents and
young adults who have been exposed to modest or small amounts of radiation feel that they are
somehow fatally flawed and there is no downside to using illicit drugs or having unprotected sex.
To reverse such attitudes and behaviours will likely take years, although some youth groups have
begun programs that have promise."[222] In addition, disadvantaged children around Chernobyl
experience health problems that are attributable not only to the Chernobyl accident, but also to the
poor state of post-Soviet health systems.[213]

The United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR), part of
the Chernobyl Forum, have produced their own assessments of the radiation effects.[224]
UNSCEAR was set up as a collaboration between various United Nation bodies, including the
World Health Organization, after the atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to assess
the long-term effects of radiation on human health.[225]

Possibly due to the Chernobyl disaster in January 1987 year ,an unusually high number of cases of
Down syndrome were reported in the Republic of Belarus, but there was no subsequent upward
trend in incidence.[226]

Long-term radiation deaths

The number of potential deaths arising from the Chernobyl disaster is heavily debated. The World

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Health Organization's prediction of 4,000 future cancer deaths in surrounding countries[15] is

based on the Linear no-threshold model (LNT), which assumes that the damage inflicted by
radiation at low doses is directly proportional to the dose.[227] Radiation epidemiologist Roy Shore
contends that estimating health effects in a population from the LNT model "is not wise because of
the uncertainties".[228]

According to the Union of Concerned Scientists the number of excess cancer deaths worldwide
(including all contaminated areas) is approximately 27,000 based on the same LNT.[229]

Another study critical of the Chernobyl Forum report was commissioned by Greenpeace, which
asserted that the most recently published figures indicate that in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine the
accident could have resulted in 10,000–200,000 additional deaths in the period between 1990 and
2004.[230] The Scientific Secretary of the Chernobyl Forum criticized the report's reliance on non-
peer-reviewed locally produced studies. Although most of the study's sources were from peer-
reviewed journals, including many Western medical journals, the higher mortality estimates were
from non-peer-reviewed sources,[230] while Gregory Härtl (spokesman for the WHO) suggested
that the conclusions were motivated by ideology.[231]

Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment is a 2007 Russian
publication that concludes that there were 985,000 premature deaths as a consequence of the
radioactivity released.[232] The results were criticized by M. I. Balonov from the Institute of
Radiation Hygiene in St. Petersburg, Russia, who described them as biased, drawing from sources
that were difficult to independently verify and lacking a proper scientific base. Balanov expressed
his opinion that "the authors unfortunately did not appropriately analyse the content of the
Russian-language publications, for example, to separate them into those that contain scientific
evidence and those based on hasty impressions and ignorant conclusions".[232]

According to U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission member and Professor of Health Physics
Kenneth Mossman,[233] the "LNT philosophy is overly conservative, and low-level radiation may be
less dangerous than commonly believed."[234] Yoshihisa Matsumoto, a radiation biologist at the
Tokyo Institute of Technology, cites laboratory experiments on animals to suggest there must be a
threshold dose below which DNA repair mechanisms can completely repair any radiation damage.
[228] Mossman suggests that the proponents of the current model believe that being conservative is

justified due to the uncertainties surrounding low level doses and it is better to have a "prudent
public health policy".[233]

Another significant issue is establishing consistent data on which to base the analysis of the impact
of the Chernobyl accident. Since 1991, large social and political changes have occurred within the
affected regions and these changes have had significant impact on the administration of health
care, on socio-economic stability, and the manner in which statistical data is collected.[235] Ronald
Chesser, a radiation biologist at Texas Tech University, says that "the subsequent Soviet collapse,
scarce funding, imprecise dosimetry, and difficulties tracking people over the years have limited
the number of studies and their reliability".[228]

Socio-economic impact

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It is difficult to establish the total economic cost of the disaster.

According to Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet Union spent
18 billion Rbls (the equivalent of US$2.5 billion at that time, or
$5.9 billion in today's dollars[236]) on containment and
decontamination, virtually bankrupting itself.[237] In 2005, the
total cost over 30 years for Belarus which includes the monthly
payments to liquidators, was estimated at US$235 billion;[213]
about $352 billion in today's dollars given inflation rates.[236] Abandoned buildings in Chernobyl
Gorbachev in April 2006 wrote "The nuclear meltdown at
Chernobyl 20 years ago this month, even more than my launch
of perestroika, was perhaps the real cause of the collapse of the
Soviet Union."[238]

Ongoing costs are well known; in their 2003–2005 report, the

Chernobyl Forum stated that between five and seven percent of
government spending in Ukraine is still related to Chernobyl,
while in Belarus more than $13 billion is thought to have been
spent between 1991 and 2003, with 22% of national budget
Russian president Dmitry Medvedev
having been Chernobyl-related in 1991, falling to six percent by and Ukrainian president Viktor
2002.[213] In 2018, Ukraine spent five to seven percent of its Yanukovych laying flowers at the
national budget on recovery activities related to the Chernobyl memorial to the victims of the
disaster.[239] Overall economic loss is estimated at $235 billion Chernobyl disaster in April 2011.
in Belarus.[239] Much of the current cost relates to the payment
of Chernobyl-related social benefits to some seven million
people across the three countries.[213]

A significant economic impact at the time was the removal of

784,320 ha (1,938,100 acres) of agricultural land and
694,200 ha (1,715,000 acres) of forest from production. While
much of this has been returned to use, agricultural production
costs have risen due to the need for special cultivation
techniques, fertilizers and additives.[213] Politically, the Exposition at Ukrainian National
accident gave great significance to the new Soviet policy of Chernobyl Museum
glasnost,[240] and helped forge closer Soviet–US relations at
the end of the Cold War, through bioscientific cooperation.
[93]: 44–48 The disaster also became a key factor in the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, and a

major influence in shaping the 'new' Eastern Europe.[93]: 20–21 Gorbachev stated in respect to the
disaster that, "More than anything else, (Chernobyl) opened the possibility of much greater
freedom of expression, to the point that the (Soviet) system as we knew it could no longer
continue."[241]

Both Ukraine and Belarus, in their first months of independence, lowered legal radiation
thresholds from the Soviet Union's previous, elevated thresholds (from 35 rems per lifetime under
the USSR to 7 rems per lifetime in Ukraine and 0.1 rems per year in Belarus).[242]: 46–47, 119–124

Ukrainians viewed the Chernobyl disaster as another attempt by Russians to destroy them,

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comparable to the Holodomor.[243][244][245] Meanwhile, commentators have argued that the

events of the Chernobyl disaster were uniquely inclined to occur in a communist country versus a
capitalist country.[246] It has been argued that Soviet power plant administrators were not
empowered to make crucial decisions when time was of the essence.[247]

A famous Austrian Alpine farmer Sepp Holzer reported decades later that the Chernobyl disaster
had ruined his business selling edible mushrooms (such as shiitake and king stropharia): "Despite
the fact that our mushrooms were obviously not contaminated, overnight it became impossible to
sell them."[248]

Long term site remediation

Following the accident, questions arose about the future of the
plant and its eventual fate. All work on the unfinished reactors
No. 5 and No. 6 was halted three years later. However, the
trouble at the Chernobyl plant did not end with the disaster in
reactor No. 4. The damaged reactor was sealed off and 200
cubic meters (260 cu yd) of concrete was placed between the
disaster site and the operational buildings. The work was Portraits of deceased Chernobyl
managed by Grigoriy Mihaylovich Naginskiy, the deputy chief liquidators used for an anti-nuclear
engineer of Installation and Construction Directorate—90. The power protest in Geneva
Ukrainian government allowed the three remaining reactors to
continue operating because of an energy shortage in the
country.

Decommissioning of other reactors

In October 1991, a fire occurred in the turbine building of reactor No. 2;[249] the authorities
subsequently declared the reactor damaged beyond repair, and it was taken offline. Reactor No. 1
was decommissioned in November 1996 as part of a deal between the Ukrainian government and
international organizations such as the IAEA to end operations at the plant. On 15 December 2000,
then-President Leonid Kuchma personally turned off reactor No. 3 in an official ceremony,
shutting down the entire site.[250]

No. 4 reactor confinement

Soon after the accident, the reactor building was quickly encased by a mammoth concrete
sarcophagus in a notable feat of construction under severe conditions. Crane operators worked
blindly from inside lead-lined cabins taking instructions from distant radio observers, while
gargantuan-sized pieces of concrete were moved to the site on custom-made vehicles. The purpose
of the sarcophagus was to stop any further release of radioactive particles into the atmosphere,
isolate the exposed core from the weather and provide safety for the continued operations of
adjacent reactors one through three.[251]

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The concrete sarcophagus was never intended to last very long, with a lifespan of only 30 years. On
12 February 2013, a 600 m2 (6,500 sq ft) section of the roof of the turbine-building collapsed,
adjacent to the sarcophagus, causing a new release of radioactivity and temporary evacuation of the
area. At first it was assumed that the roof collapsed because of the weight of snow, however the
amount of snow was not exceptional, and the report of a Ukrainian fact-finding panel concluded
that the collapse was the result of sloppy repair work and aging of the structure. Experts warned
the sarcophagus itself was on the verge of collapse.[252][253]

In 1997, the international

Chernobyl Shelter Fund was
founded to design and build a
more permanent cover for the
unstable and short-lived
sarcophagus. It received €864
million from international
donors in 2011 and was
managed by the European Bank
A stitched panorama view of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant site in
for Reconstruction and Ukraine, pictures taken in June 2013. Descriptions of the buildings from
Development (EBRD).[254] The left to right: First half of the New Safe Confinement (under construction)
new shelter was named the New after second lifting operation (had not yet reached its final height), reactor
Safe Confinement and 4 with existing shelter building and the new and old ventilation shafts,
construction began in 2010. It is reactor 3, cranes to dismantle the old ventilation shaft, reactor 2, reactor
a metal arch 105 metres (344 ft) 1.

high and spanning 257 metres

(843 ft) built on rails adjacent
to the reactor No. 4 building so that it could be slid over the top of the existing sarcophagus. The
New Safe Confinement was completed in 2016 and slid into place over top the sarcophagus on 29
November.[255] The huge steel arch was moved into place over several weeks.[256] Unlike the
original sarcophagus, the New Safe Confinement is designed to allow the reactor to be safely
dismantled using remotely operated equipment.

Waste management
Used fuel from units 1–3 was stored in the units' cooling ponds, and in an interim spent fuel
storage facility pond, ISF-1, which now holds most of the spent fuel from units 1–3, allowing those
reactors to be decommissioned under less restrictive conditions. Approximately 50 of the fuel
assemblies from units 1 and 2 were damaged and required special handling. Moving fuel to ISF-1
was thus carried out in three stages: fuel from unit 3 was moved first, then all undamaged fuel
from units 1 and 2, and finally the damaged fuel from units 1 and 2. Fuel transfers to ISF-1 were
completed in June 2016.[257]

A need for larger, longer-term radioactive waste management at the Chernobyl site is to be fulfilled
by a new facility designated ISF-2. This facility is to serve as dry storage for used fuel assemblies
from units 1–3 and other operational wastes, as well as material from decommissioning units 1–3
(which will be the first RBMK units decommissioned anywhere).

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A contract was signed in 1999 with Areva NP (now Framatome) for construction of ISF-2. In 2003,
after a significant part of the storage structures had been built, technical deficiencies in the design
concept became apparent. In 2007, Areva withdrew and Holtec International was contracted for a
new design and construction of ISF-2. The new design was approved in 2010, work started in 2011,
and construction was completed in August 2017.[258]

ISF-2 is the world's largest nuclear fuel storage facility, expected to hold more than 21,000 fuel
assemblies for at least 100 years. The project includes a processing facility able to cut the RBMK
fuel assemblies and to place the material in canisters, to be filled with inert gas and welded shut.
The canisters are then to be transported to dry storage vaults, where the fuel containers will be
enclosed for up to 100 years. Expected processing capacity is 2,500 fuel assemblies per year.[112]

Fuel-containing materials
According to official estimates, about 95% of the fuel in reactor No. 4 at the time of the accident
(about 180 tonnes (180 long tons; 200 short tons)) remains inside the shelter, with a total
radioactivity of nearly 18 million curies (670 PBq). The radioactive material consists of core
fragments, dust, and lava-like "fuel containing materials" (FCM)—also called "corium"—that
flowed through the wrecked reactor building before hardening into a ceramic form.

Three different lavas are present in the basement of the reactor building: black, brown, and a
porous ceramic. The lava materials are silicate glasses with inclusions of other materials within
them. The porous lava is brown lava that dropped into water and thus cooled rapidly. It is unclear
how long the ceramic form will retard the release of radioactivity. From 1997 to 2002, a series of
published papers suggested that the self-irradiation of the lava would convert all 1,200 tonnes
(1,200 long tons; 1,300 short tons) into a submicrometre and mobile powder within a few weeks.
[259]

It has been reported that the degradation of the lava is likely to be a slow, gradual process, rather
than sudden and rapid.[260] The same paper states that the loss of uranium from the wrecked
reactor is only 10 kg (22 lb) per year; this low rate of uranium leaching suggests that the lava is
resisting its environment.[260] The paper also states that when the shelter is improved, the leaching
rate of the lava will decrease.[260] As of 2021, some fuel had already degraded significantly. The
famous elephant's foot, which originally was so hard that it required the use of an armor piercing
AK-47 round to remove a chunk, had softened to a texture similar to sand.[261][262]

Prior to the completion of the New Safe Confinement building, rainwater acted as a neutron
moderator, triggering increased fission in the remaining materials, risking criticality. Gadolinium
nitrate solution was used to quench neutrons to slow the fission. Even after completion of the
building, fission reactions may be increasing; scientists are working to understand the cause and
risks. While neutron activity has declined across most of the destroyed fuel, from 2017 until late
2020 a doubling in neutron density was recorded in the sub-reactor space, before levelling off in
early 2021. This indicated increasing levels of fission as water levels dropped, the opposite of what
had been expected, and atypical compared to other fuel-containing areas. The fluctuations have led
to fears that a self-sustaining reaction could be created, which would likely spread more radioactive
dust and debris throughout the New Safe Confinement, making future cleanup even more difficult.

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Potential solutions include using a robot to drill into the fuel and insert boron carbide control rods.
[261] In early 2021, a ChNPP press release stated that the observed increase in neutron densities

had leveled off since the beginning of that year.

Exclusion zone

A map of the Exclusion Zone

The Exclusion Zone was originally an area with a radius of 30

kilometres (19 mi) in all directions from the plant, but was
subsequently greatly enlarged to include an area measuring
approximately 2,600 km2 (1,000 sq mi), officially called the
"zone of alienation". The area has largely reverted to forest and
was overrun by wildlife due to the lack of human competition
for space and resources.[263]

Mass media sources have provided a variety of generalized

The entrance to the zone of
estimates for when the Zone could be considered habitable
alienation around Chernobyl
again. These informal estimates have ranged[264] from
approximately 300 years[265] (corresponding to 10 half-lives of
the widespread radionuclides Cesium-137 and Strontium-90), to multiples of 20,000 years,[264]
referring to the half-life of Plutonium-239 which contaminates the central portion of the Zone.

In the years following the disaster, residents known as samosely illegally returned to their
abandoned homes to regain their lives. Most people are retired and survive mainly from farming
and packages delivered by visitors.[266][267] As of 2016, 187 locals had returned to the zone and
were living permanently there.[263]

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In 2011, Ukraine opened the sealed zone around the Chernobyl reactor to tourists wishing to learn
more about the 1986 tragedy.[268][269][270] Sergii Mirnyi, a radiation reconnaissance officer at the
time of the accident, and now an academic at National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, has
written about the psychological and physical effects on survivors and visitors, and worked as an
advisor to Chernobyl tourism groups.[270][271]

Forest fire concerns

During the dry season, forest fires are a perennial concern in areas contaminated by radioactive
material. Dry conditions and build-up of debris make the forests a ripe breeding ground for
wildfires.[272] Depending on prevailing atmospheric conditions, smoke from wildfires could
potentially spread more radioactive material outside the exclusion zone.[273][274] In Belarus, the
Bellesrad organization is tasked with overseeing food cultivation and forestry management in the
area.

In April 2020, forest fires spread through 20,000 hectares (49,000 acres) of the exclusion zone,
causing increased radiation from the release of caesium-137 and strontium-90 from the ground
and biomass. The increase in radioactivity was detectable by the monitoring network but did not
pose a threat to human health. The average radiation dose that Kyiv residents received as a result
of the fires was estimated to be 1 nSv.[275][276]

Recovery projects
The Chernobyl Trust Fund was created in 1991 by the United Nations to help victims of the
Chernobyl accident.[277] It is administered by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs, which also manages strategy formulation, resource mobilization, and
advocacy efforts.[278] Beginning in 2002, under the United Nations Development Programme, the
fund shifted its focus from emergency assistance to long-term development.[239][278]

The Chernobyl Shelter Fund was established in 1997 at the G8 summit in Denver to finance the
Shelter Implementation Plan (SIP). The plan called for transforming the site into an ecologically
safe condition through stabilization of the sarcophagus and construction of a New Safe
Confinement (NSC) structure. While the original cost estimate for the SIP was US$768 million, the
2006 estimate was $1.2 billion. The SIP is being managed by a consortium of Bechtel, Battelle, and
Électricité de France, and conceptual design for the NSC consisted of a movable arch, constructed
away from the shelter to avoid high radiation, then slid over the sarcophagus. The NSC was moved
into position in November 2016 and was expected to be completed by late 2017.[279]

In 2003, the United Nations Development Programme launched the Chernobyl Recovery and
Development Programme (CRDP) for the recovery of affected areas.[280] The programme was
initiated in February 2002 based on the recommendations in the report on Human Consequences
of the Chernobyl Nuclear Accident. The main goal of the CRDP was supporting the Government of
Ukraine in mitigating long-term social, economic, and ecological consequences of the Chernobyl
catastrophe. CRDP works in the four most affected Ukrainian areas: Kyivska, Zhytomyrska,

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Chernihivska and Rivnenska.

More than 18,000 Ukrainian children affected by the disaster have been treated in the resort town
of Tarará, Cuba, since 1990.[281]

The International Project on the Health Effects of the Chernobyl Accident was created and received
US$20 million, mainly from Japan, in hopes of discovering the main cause of health problems due
to iodine-131 radiation. These funds were divided among Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia, the three
most affected countries, for further investigation of health effects. As there was significant
corruption in former Soviet countries, most of the foreign aid was given to Russia, and no results
from the funding were demonstrated.

Nuclear debate
The Chernobyl accident attracted a great deal of interest.
Because of the distrust that many people had in the Soviet
authorities, which engaged in a major cover-up of the disaster,
a great deal of debate about the situation at the site occurred in
the First World during the early days of the event. Because of
defective intelligence based on satellite imagery, it was thought
that unit number three had also had a dire accident. Journalists
mistrusted many professionals, and they in turn encouraged
Anti-nuclear protest after the
the public to mistrust them.[190] Chernobyl disaster on May Day,
1986 in West Berlin
The accident raised already heightened concerns about fission
reactors worldwide, and while most concern was focused on
those of the same unusual design, hundreds of disparate nuclear reactor proposals, including those
under construction at Chernobyl, reactors numbers 5 and 6, were eventually cancelled. With
ballooning costs as a result of new nuclear reactor safety system standards and the legal and
political costs in dealing with the increasingly hostile/anxious public opinion, there was a
precipitous drop in the rate of new reactor construction after 1986.[282]

The accident also raised concerns about the cavalier safety

culture in the Soviet nuclear power industry, slowing industry
growth and forcing the Soviet government to become less
secretive about its operating procedures.[283][c] The
government coverup of the Chernobyl disaster was a catalyst
for glasnost, which "paved the way for reforms leading to the
Soviet collapse."[284] Numerous structural and construction
quality issues, as well as deviations from the original plant
design, had been known to the KGB since at least 1973 and Nuclear power protest in Berlin,
passed on to the Central Committee, which took no action and 2011
classified the information.[285]

In Italy, the Chernobyl accident was reflected in the outcome of the 1987 referendum. As a result of

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that referendum, Italy began phasing out its nuclear power

plants in 1988, a decision that was effectively reversed in 2008.
A 2011 referendum reiterated Italians' strong objections to
nuclear power, thus abrogating the government's 2008
decision.

In Germany, the Chernobyl accident led to the creation of a

federal environment ministry, after several states had already
created such a post. The post has been held, among others, by
Angela Merkel who would later become leader of the
opposition and then chancellor. The German environmental
minister was given the authority over reactor safety as well, a
responsibility the current minister still holds today. The
Chernobyl disaster is also credited with strengthening the anti-
nuclear movement in Germany, which culminated in the
decision to end the use of nuclear power made by the 1998– After Chernobyl, nuclear debate
2005 Schröder government.[286] A temporary reversal of this became a topic in galleries and
policy was in turn reverted after the Fukushima nuclear exhibitions. Artwork by French-
disaster. American Jean Dupuy in 1986
dedicated to Chernobyl disaster.
In direct response to the Chernobyl disaster, a conference to
create a Convention on Early Notification of a Nuclear Accident
was called in 1986 by the International Atomic Energy Agency. The resulting treaty has bound
signatory member states to provide notification of any nuclear and radiation accidents that occur
within its jurisdiction that could affect other states, along with the Convention on Assistance in the
Case of a Nuclear Accident or Radiological Emergency.

The Chernobyl disaster, along with the space shuttle Challenger disaster, the Three Mile Island
accident, and the Bhopal disaster have been used together as case studies, both by the US
government and by third parties, in research concerning the root causes of such disasters, such as
sleep deprivation[287] and mismanagement.[288]

Cultural impact
The Chernobyl tragedy has inspired many artists across the world to create works of art,
animation, video games, theatre and cinema about the disaster. The HBO series Chernobyl and the
book Voices from Chernobyl by the Ukrainian-Belarusian writer Svetlana Alexievich are two well-
known works that talk about the catastrophe that destroyed millions of lives.[289] The Ukrainian
artist Roman Gumanyuk created a series of artworks called "Pripyat Lights, or Chernobyl shadows"
that includes 30 oil paintings about the Chernobyl accident. The series of artwork was exhibited at
the National Fine Art Museum of Kyrgyzstan in Bishkek, the Kasteev State Museum of Arts of
Kazakhstan in Almaty, the Vashchenko Art Gallery of Gomel in Belarus, and at the Museum of
Chernobyl in Kharkiv in Ukraine in the years 2012–2013.[290][291]

The video game S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadows of Chernobyl released by THQ in 2007, is a first-person

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shooter set in the Exclusion Zone.[292] A prequel called S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky was released in
2008 following with a sequel S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat released in 2010. Finally, the horror
film Chernobyl Diaries released in 2012 is about six tourists that hire a tour guide to take them to
the abandoned city of Pripyat where they discover they are not alone.[293]

Filmmakers have created documentaries that examine the aftermath of the disaster over the years.
Documentaries like the Oscar-winning Chernobyl Heart released in 2003, explore how radiation
affected people living in the area and information about the long-term side effects of radiation
exposure over the years that include mental disabilities, physical disabilities, and genetic mutations
after the disaster.[294]The Babushkas of Chernobyl released in 2015, is a documentary that
explores the story of the three women who decided to return to the exclusion zone after the
disaster. In the documentary, the Babushkas show the polluted water, their food from radioactive
gardens, and explain how they manage to survive in this exclusion zone despite the radioactive
levels of it.[295][296] The documentary The Battle of Chernobyl, released in 2006, shows a rare
original footage a day before the disaster in the city of Pripyat, then through different methods the
documentary goes in depth on the chronological events that led to the explosion of the reactor No.
4 and the disaster response in which 50,000 men from Soviet Union engaged to liquidate the
radioactivity of the damaged reactor.[297][298] The critically acclaimed 2019 historical drama
television miniseries Chernobyl revolves around the Chernobyl disaster of 1986 and the cleanup
efforts that followed.

Tourism
In July 2019, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that the Chernobyl site would
become an official tourist attraction. Zelenskyy said, "We must give this territory of Ukraine a new
life," after Chernobyl saw an increase in visitors since the HBO mini-series.[299][300] Dr. T. Steen, a
microbiology and immunology teacher at Georgetown's School of Medicine, recommends tourists
to wear clothes and shoes they are comfortable with throwing away. Most importantly, Steen
suggests to avoid plant life, especially the depths of the forest due to the high levels of radiation.
Because the areas were not cleaned in the aftermath of the disaster, they remain highly
contaminated. Research showed that fungus, moss, and mushrooms are radioactive. Drinking or
eating from there could be dangerous. Generally speaking, Chernobyl can be a safe place, Dr. Steen
said, "but it depends on how people behave."[301]

See also
▪ Capture of Chernobyl – part of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine
▪ Individual involvement in the Chernobyl disaster – People involved in the Chernobyl nuclear
accident
▪ List of Chernobyl-related articles
▪ List of books about the Chernobyl disaster – Continuing list of books about the Chernobyl
meltdown
▪ List of industrial disasters

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▪ Lists of nuclear disasters and radioactive incidents

▪ Nuclear fallout effects on an ecosystem – Effects of radiological fallout on an ecosystem
▪ Consequences of the Chernobyl disaster in France

References

Notes
a. Sometimes spelled as the Chornobyl disaster because of the Ukrainian name for Chernobyl.
Russian: Авария на Чернобыльской АЭС. Ukrainian: Чорнобильська катастрофа.
b. Although most reports on the Chernobyl accident refer to a number of graphite fires, it is highly
unlikely that the graphite itself burned. According to the General Atomics website:[43] "It is often
incorrectly assumed that the combustion behavior of graphite is similar to that of charcoal and
coal. Numerous tests and calculations have shown that it is virtually impossible to burn high-
purity, nuclear-grade graphites." On Chernobyl, the same source states: "Graphite played little
or no role in the progression or consequences of the accident. The red glow observed during
the Chernobyl accident was the expected color of luminescence for graphite at 700°C and not
a large-scale graphite fire, as some have incorrectly assumed." Similarly, nuclear physicist
Yevgeny Velikhov,[44] noted some two weeks after the accident, "Until now the possibility of a
catastrophe really did exist: A great quantity of fuel and graphite of the reactor was in an
incandescent state." That is, all the nuclear-decay heat that was generated inside the uranium
fuel (heat that would normally be extracted by back-up coolant pumps, in an undamaged
reactor) was instead responsible for making the fuel itself and any graphite in contact with it,
glow red-hot. This is contrary to the often-cited interpretation, which is that the graphite was
red-hot chiefly because it was chemically oxidizing with the air.
c. "No one believed the first newspaper reports, which patently understated the scale of the
catastrophe and often contradicted one another. The confidence of readers was re-established
only after the press was allowed to examine the events in detail without the original censorship
restrictions. The policy of openness (glasnost) and 'uncompromising criticism' of outmoded
arrangements had been proclaimed at the 27th Congress (of the Communist Party of Soviet
Union), but it was only in the tragic days following the Chernobyl disaster that glasnost began
to change from an official slogan into an everyday practice. The truth about Chernobyl that
eventually hit the newspapers opened the way to a more truthful examination of other social
problems. More and more articles were written about drug abuse, crime, corruption and the
mistakes of leaders of various ranks. A wave of 'bad news' swept over the readers in 1986–87,
shaking the consciousness of society. Many were horrified to find out about the numerous
calamities of which they had previously had no idea. It often seemed to people that there were
many more outrages in the epoch of perestroika than before although, in fact, they had simply
not been informed about them previously." Kagarlitsky 1989, pp. 333–334.

Footnotes
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Works cited
▪ Dyatlov, Anatoly (2003). Chernobyl. How did it happen (in Russian). Nauchtechlitizdat,
Moscow. ISBN 978-5-93728-006-0.

Further reading

External links
▪ Official UN Chernobyl site ([Link]
[Link]/)
▪ International Chernobyl Portal [Link], UN Inter-Agency Project ICRIN ([Link]

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[Link]/20091112210932/http%3A//[Link]/)
▪ Frequently Asked Chernobyl Questions ([Link]
[Link]/NewsCenter/Features/Chernobyl-15/[Link]), by the IAEA
▪ Chernobyl disaster facts and information ([Link]
[Link]/culture/topics/reference/chernobyl-disaster/), by National
Geographic
▪ Chernobyl Recovery and Development Programme (United Nations Development Programme)
([Link]
▪ Footage and documentary films about Chernobyl disaster ([Link]
e-1/?search=qChernobyl) on Net-Film Newsreels and Documentary Films Archive ([Link]
[Link]/en/)
▪ Photographs from inside the zone of alienation and City of Prypyat (2010) ([Link]
[Link]/web/20110715154617/[Link]
▪ Photographs from the City of Pripyat, and of those affected by the disaster ([Link]
[Link]/web/20120322030018/[Link]
▪ English Russia Photos of a RBMK-based power plant ([Link]
9/04/29/at-the-nuclear-power-plant/), showing details of the reactor hall, pumps, and the control
room
▪ Post-Soviet Pollution: Effects of Chernobyl ([Link]
p://[Link]/handle/10822/552539) from theDean Peter Krogh Foreign
Affairs Digital Archives
▪ Map of residual radioactivity around Chernobyl ([Link]
02&z=13&l=0&m=0)

Retrieved from "[Link]

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