Search results
Apr 5, 2024 · April 5, 2024, at 6:09 a.m. MOSCOW (Reuters) - Authorities in Russia's far eastern city of Khabarovsk have declared a state of emergency in an area where a "radiation source" was found, TASS...
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.
- Reactor design and operator error
- INES Level 7 (major accident)
- 26 April 1986; 37 years ago
Apr 28, 2022 · April 28, 2022. Radiation levels are elevated in some parts of the soil near the defunct Chernobyl nuclear plant in northern Ukraine, but do not pose a significant threat to workers or the...
- Where Is Chernobyl?
- What Happened at Chernobyl?
- Pripyat Evacuated
- Soviet Secrecy
- Chernobyl Disaster Spewed Radiation
- Chernobyl Sarcophagus
- Chernobyl Elephant’s Foot
- How Many People Died in Chernobyl?
- Chernobyl Exclusion Zone
- Chernobyl Animals Thrive
Chernobyl is located in northern Ukraine, about 80 miles north of Kiev. A small town, Pripyat, was constructed a few miles from the site of the nuclear plant to accommodate workers and their families. Construction of the Chernobyl power plant began in 1977, when the country was still part of the Soviet Union. By 1983, four reactors had been complet...
A routine exercise to test whether an emergency water cooling system would work during a power loss started at 1:23 a.m. on April 26. Within seconds, an uncontrolled reaction caused pressure to build up in Reactor No. 4 in the form of steam. The steam blasted the roof off the reactor, releasing plumes of radiation and chunks of burning, radioactive...
Meanwhile, life went on as usual for almost a day in the neighboring town of Pripyat. Aside from the sight of trucks cleaning the streets with foam, there were initially few signs of the disaster unfolding just miles away. It wasn’t until the next day, April 27, when the government began evacuations of Pripyat’s 50,000 residents. Residents were tol...
It took days for Soviet leadership to inform the international community that the disaster had occurred. The Soviet government made no official statement about the global-scale accident until Swedish leaders demanded an explanation when operators of a nuclear power plant in Stockholm registered unusually high radiation levels near their plant. Fina...
The damaged plant released a large quantity of radioactive substances, including iodine-131, cesium-137, plutonium and strontium-90, into the air for over a period of 10 days. The radioactive cloud was deposited nearby as dust and debris, but was also carried by wind over the Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, Scandinavia and other parts of Europe. In an at...
Over a hurried construction period of 206 days, crews erected a steel and cement sarcophagus to entomb the damaged reactor and contain any further release of radiation. As former liquidator, Yaroslav Melnik, told the BBCin January 2017, “We worked in three shifts, but only for five to seven minutes at a time because of the danger. After finishing, ...
Deep within the basement of Reactor 4 lies the Chernobyl Elephant’s Foot, a huge mass of melted concrete, sand and highly radioactive nuclear fuel. The mass was named for its wrinkled appearance, which reminded some observers of the wrinkled skin of an elephant’s leg and foot. In the 1980s, the Elephant’s Foot gave off an estimated 10,000 roentgens...
Ukraine’s government declared in 1995 that 125,000 people had died from the effects of Chernobyl radiation. A 2005 report from the United NationsChernobyl Forum estimated that while fewer than 50 people were killed in the months following the accident, up to 9,000 people could eventually die from excess cancer deaths linked to radiation exposure fr...
Apart from the ever-unfolding human toll from the disaster, the Chernobyl accident also left behind a huge area of radiation-tainted land. A 770-mile-wide Chernobyl Exclusion Zone around the site isn’t considered safe for human habitation and can’t be used for logging or agriculture due to contaminated plants and soil. By 2017, however, entrepreneu...
Meanwhile, wildlife, including boars, wolves, beavers and bison, showed signs of flourishing at the Chernobyl site, according to an April 2016 study. The researchers pointed out that while radiation exposure couldn’t be good for the animals, the benefits of the absence of humans outweighed radiation risk.
25 February 2022. By Victoria Gill,Science correspondent, BBC News. BBC. The Chernobyl site contains several nuclear waste containment facilities to prevent radioactive materials spreading. A...
During the first three weeks after the accident, the level of radiation in the atmosphere in several places around the globe was above normal; but these levels quickly receded. No studies have been able to point to a direct link between Chernobyl and increased cancer risks or other health problems outside the immediately affected republics of ...
Apr 23, 2011 · Among those who survived radiation sickness, recovery took several years. Many of them developed radiation-induced cataracts in the first few years after the accident. Recent studies of the recovery operation workers indicate that opacities of the eye lens might result from radiation doses lower than previously expected (about 500 mSv). Cancers
