Chernobyl disaster

Chernobyl Disaster

Reactor 4 several months after the disaster. Reactor 3 can be seen behind the ventilation stack.
Date	April 26, 1986 (1986-04-26)
Time	01:23 MSD (UTC+04:00)
Duration	1986-Present
Location	Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant
Type	Nuclear Accident
Cause	Reactor design and operator error
Outcome	INES Level 7
Deaths	28 from Radiation Posioning, 2 killed in disaster, 15 from terminal thyroid cancer
Missing	1

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The Chernobyl disaster^[1] was a nuclear disaster. It happened on April 26, 1986 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant near the town of Pripyat, Ukraine. At that time, Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union. The station is 110 kilometers north of the nation's capital, Kyiv.

The event was one of the worst accidents in the history of nuclear power. It was rated level 7, the most severe level, on the International Nuclear Event Scale. The only other accident with a level 7 rating is Fukushima. The RBMK reactors that were used at the plant had no containment building to keep the radiation in. Radioactive fallout drifted over parts of the western Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, the United Kingdom, and the eastern United States. Large areas of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia were badly contaminated. About 60% of the radioactive fallout landed in Belarus.^[2][3] About 360,000 people needed to be moved to other places where they could live after the accident. Many people suffered from acute radiation poisoning and long-term illnesses such as thyroid cancer.^[4][5]

1. ↑ Ukrainian: Чорнобильська катастрофа
2. ↑ ICRIN Project (2011). International Chernobyl Portal chernobyl.info.
3. ↑ Environmental consequences of the Chernobyl accident and their remediation: Twenty years of experience. Report of the Chernobyl Forum Expert Group 'Environment' (PDF). Vienna: International Atomic Energy Agency. 2006. p. 180. ISBN 92-0-114705-8. Retrieved 13 March 2011.
4. ↑ "Table 2.2 Number of people affected by the Chernobyl accident (to December 2000)" (PDF). The Human Consequences of the Chernobyl Nuclear Accident. UNDP and UNICEF. 22 January 2002. p. 32. Archived from the original (PDF) on 1 February 2017. Retrieved 17 September 2010.
5. ↑ "Table 5.3: Evacuated and resettled people" (PDF). The Human Consequences of the Chernobyl Nuclear Accident. UNDP and UNICEF. 22 January 2002. p. 66. Archived from the original (PDF) on 1 February 2017. Retrieved 17 September 2010.