Sorry if this has been posted before but I see only one topic about Greenpeace claiming numbers of Chernobyl victims to be higher etc...
On Saturday, April 26, 1986, at 1:23:58 a.m. local time, the unit 4 reactor of the Chernobyl power plant—known as Chernobyl-4—suffered a catastrophic steam explosion that resulted in a fire, a series of additional explosions, and a nuclear meltdown.
The nuclear meltdown provoked a radioactive cloud which flew over Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, but also the European part of Turkey, Moldova, Lithuania, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, France and the United Kingdom. In fact, the initial evidence in other countries that a major exhaust of radioactive material had occurred came not from Soviet sources, but from Sweden, where on April 27 workers at the Forsmark Nuclear Power Plant (approximately 1100 km from the Chernobyl site) were found to have radioactive particles on their clothes. It was Sweden's search for the source of radioactivity, after they had determined there was no leak at the Swedish plant, that led to the first hint of a serious nuclear problem in the Western Soviet Union. In France, the state then claimed that the radioactive cloud had stopped at the Italian border. Therefore, while some kinds of foods were prohibited in Italy because of radioactivity (in particular mushrooms), the French authorities didn't take any such measures, in an attempt to appease the population's fears.
Contamination from the Chernobyl accident was not evenly spread across the surrounding countryside, but scattered irregularly depending on weather conditions. Reports from Soviet and Western scientists indicate that Belarus received about 60% of the contamination that fell on the former Soviet Union. A large area in the Russian Federation south of Bryansk was also contaminated, as were parts of northwestern Ukraine.
Two-hundred and three people were hospitalized immediately, of whom 31 died (28 of them died from acute radiation exposure). Most of these were fire and rescue workers trying to bring the accident under control, who were not fully aware of how dangerous the radiation exposure (from the smoke) was. One-hundred and thirty-five thousand people were evacuated from the area, including 50,000 from the nearby town of Pripyat, Ukraine. Health officials have predicted that over the next 70 years there will be a 2% increase in cancer rates in much of the population which was exposed to the 5–12 (depending on source) EBq of radioactive contamination released from the reactor. An additional 10 individuals have already died of cancer as a result of the accident.
The workers involved in the recovery and cleanup after the accident, known as "liquidators", received high doses of radiation. According to Soviet estimates, between 300,000 and 600,000 liquidators were involved in the cleanup of the 30 km evacuation zone around the reactor, but many of them entered the zone two years after the accident.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster
I remember that the Eastern blocks regimes were trying to keep the disaster in silence. Even two days after, the Czechoslovak Minister of Youth (a real Commie bitch, as all of them were...) announced in the media that nothing happens and kids can freely play outdoors. Even in the concrete village of Pripyat, kids were playing on playgrounds while soldiers walking arouind them with gasmaks... What a croocked regime that Communism was...
I suggest to look at more photos of the ghost town of Pripyat.
http://www.johndarwell.com/projects/i_lc/index.php
http://xpda.com/junkmail/junk153/chernobyl/page1.html
It's shocking... In my personal opinion (and it's quite obvious), the Fallout game was heavily inspired by this one...
Cheers,
Pisis
On Saturday, April 26, 1986, at 1:23:58 a.m. local time, the unit 4 reactor of the Chernobyl power plant—known as Chernobyl-4—suffered a catastrophic steam explosion that resulted in a fire, a series of additional explosions, and a nuclear meltdown.
The nuclear meltdown provoked a radioactive cloud which flew over Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, but also the European part of Turkey, Moldova, Lithuania, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, France and the United Kingdom. In fact, the initial evidence in other countries that a major exhaust of radioactive material had occurred came not from Soviet sources, but from Sweden, where on April 27 workers at the Forsmark Nuclear Power Plant (approximately 1100 km from the Chernobyl site) were found to have radioactive particles on their clothes. It was Sweden's search for the source of radioactivity, after they had determined there was no leak at the Swedish plant, that led to the first hint of a serious nuclear problem in the Western Soviet Union. In France, the state then claimed that the radioactive cloud had stopped at the Italian border. Therefore, while some kinds of foods were prohibited in Italy because of radioactivity (in particular mushrooms), the French authorities didn't take any such measures, in an attempt to appease the population's fears.
Contamination from the Chernobyl accident was not evenly spread across the surrounding countryside, but scattered irregularly depending on weather conditions. Reports from Soviet and Western scientists indicate that Belarus received about 60% of the contamination that fell on the former Soviet Union. A large area in the Russian Federation south of Bryansk was also contaminated, as were parts of northwestern Ukraine.
Two-hundred and three people were hospitalized immediately, of whom 31 died (28 of them died from acute radiation exposure). Most of these were fire and rescue workers trying to bring the accident under control, who were not fully aware of how dangerous the radiation exposure (from the smoke) was. One-hundred and thirty-five thousand people were evacuated from the area, including 50,000 from the nearby town of Pripyat, Ukraine. Health officials have predicted that over the next 70 years there will be a 2% increase in cancer rates in much of the population which was exposed to the 5–12 (depending on source) EBq of radioactive contamination released from the reactor. An additional 10 individuals have already died of cancer as a result of the accident.
The workers involved in the recovery and cleanup after the accident, known as "liquidators", received high doses of radiation. According to Soviet estimates, between 300,000 and 600,000 liquidators were involved in the cleanup of the 30 km evacuation zone around the reactor, but many of them entered the zone two years after the accident.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster
I remember that the Eastern blocks regimes were trying to keep the disaster in silence. Even two days after, the Czechoslovak Minister of Youth (a real Commie bitch, as all of them were...) announced in the media that nothing happens and kids can freely play outdoors. Even in the concrete village of Pripyat, kids were playing on playgrounds while soldiers walking arouind them with gasmaks... What a croocked regime that Communism was...
I suggest to look at more photos of the ghost town of Pripyat.
http://www.johndarwell.com/projects/i_lc/index.php
http://xpda.com/junkmail/junk153/chernobyl/page1.html
It's shocking... In my personal opinion (and it's quite obvious), the Fallout game was heavily inspired by this one...
Cheers,
Pisis
