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Chernobyl and Pripyat, Ukraine Chernobyl is a city located in the Ukrainian Republic of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and was the setting of the world’s largest nuclear reactor explosion. It has been estimated that nearly 1.7 million people have been exposed to radiation. The thirty-kilometer radius around the nuclear plant has come to be known as the “Exclusion Zone”. On April 26, 1986, around 1:30 a.m. what began as a routine test and shutdown turned out to be a horrible disaster. The number four reactor was operating at extremely low capacity and that, according to the reactor’s design, made it unstable. A plant operator, trying to correct the problem, ignored appropriate safety precautions and accidentally set the control rods slightly below their correct position. As a result, 100 to 150 million curies of radiation exploded into the atmosphere, sending a plume of radioactive material over Chernobyl and the workers’ quarters in nearby Pripyat. For ten days after the explosion, the Chernobyl reactor continued to send deadly radioactive pollutants into the air. Driven by the heat emanating from the burning reactor, this radioactive plume rose high into the air. In the following days the plume hovered over areas of Ukraine and Belarus. It rained on the town of Gomel, where incidences of thyroid cancer among children have been linked to this event. Later it made its way over Finland, Sweden, and other parts of the world. The explosion also affected the soil, contaminating an area of 146,300 square kilometers. Some three million Soviet citizens lived in this area at the time and all were affected in some way. Many became sick when they ingested food or milk from cattle that had eaten grass from the contaminated soil. The groundwater of the area was also significantly affected because the contaminated Pripyat River spread the contaminants to much of the surrounding area’s water supply. Unfortunately, many people drank the contaminated water before Soviet officials agreed to provide clean water. Over time the government has cleaned up and made efforts to prevent further contamination of the water supply. However, to this day radioactive material can be found in parts of the former USSR’s water supply, a result of many radioactive waste sites produced by the meltdown leaching into the water. After the nuclear accident, both the Ukrainian and Soviet governments claimed that this meltdown was a result of a new safety device test and that the plant operators had been negligent and incompetent. The two main workers who were controlling the reactor that exploded blamed their superiors for not properly informing them of safety precautions and risks. Government commissions were set up to investigate the accident further. No conclusive results emerged. The government’s main solution was to cap off the power plant with sand, clay, lead, and a few other agents so as to absorb heat and radiation. Today, Chernobyl is still contaminated with radioactive material and for the next 24,000 years will never be habitable. Its effect on the world’s health will never be fully known, although one can safely assume that through cancers and birth defects it has killed thousands and will continue to have an effect upon generations to come.
Selected Bibliography “Chernobyl’ Accident.” MSN Encarta. Weblink.
Medvedev, Zhores. The Legacy of Chernobyl. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1990.
Mould, Richard F. Chernobyl Record: The Definitive History of the Chernobyl Catastrophe. London: Institute of Physics, 2000.
Chernobyl and Pripyat, Ukraine Pictures in the Gallery 
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