INDEPTH: UKRAINE
The catastrophe of Chornobyl
CBC News Online | April 26, 2006
 Alec Zhloba, a five-year-old suffering from leukemia, looks on in a children's cancer unit at a hospital in Gomel, Belarus, on March 19, 1996. (Efrem Lukstaky/AP)
Unit 4 had been shut down the day before for routine maintenance. Unfortunately, the mix-up between the non-nuclear people and the nuclear people compromised the safety of the reactor operation and, in the darkness of Chornobyl that night, "a sudden and uncontrollable power surge . . . resulted in violent explosions and almost total destruction of the reactor."
Two people were killed immediately. The next morning, a third person died from thermal burns. By the end of a week, 31 had died. But that was just the beginning. The International Atomic Energy Agency's Chornobyl Forum said at least 4,000 people died, or would die, from radiation-induced cancers.
The World Health Organization later upped that figure to 9,000. But other estimates are much higher.
Greenpeace says new data suggests 270,000 additional cancers and 93,000 fatal cancer cases will be caused by Chornobyl. Other estimates say 200,000 people have already died in Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia. At least three million more have been sickened by the accident, a third of them children.
The radioactive clouds covered the entire Northern Hemisphere, drifted across Europe and affected the United States and Canada. The accumulation and the impact of the radioactivity released from the Chornobyl catastrophe may be impossible to detail, as it also poisoned land, air and animals. It poisoned cow meat and cow milk. It poisoned sheep in Britain, reindeer in Norway, fish in Sweden and Switzerland. So intense was the irradiation in the vicinity of Chornobyl, it killed trees in what became known as the "red forest" syndrome.
MORE: Still killing people
Chornobyl's radiation fallout hit most European countries (CBC Map)
Chornobyl is still killing people.
It was the Soviet Union then and bureaucratic officials initially tried to hush the story of the explosions at Chornobyl. It was also the time of glasnost and perestroika, an opening up of the Soviet Union that eventually would lead to its demise.
Seven months after the explosion, the destroyed reactor was encased in concrete, known as a "sarcophagus." This has developed cracks and leaks over the years and millions more must be spent to bury the remains of the reactor, which still has a potent supply of deadly radioactive material.
The new city of Slavutych, population 25,000, houses many workers at the remaining plant, but with the shutdown of Chornobyl, Slavutych likely will become a ghost town. Ukraine agreed to the shutdown in exchange for $3.5 billion worth of Western aid, $48 million of this from Canada. Slavutych was built 13 years ago, some 50 kilometres east of Chornobyl, with financial aid from eight Soviet republics. Back then it was billed as "the City of Hope."
 On Nov. 10, 2000, geiger counters registered about 80,000 microroentgens an hour – 16,000 times the safe limit – in the control room inside Reactor 4. The radioactivity released from the Chornobyl catastrophe poisoned land, air and animals as well as people. (Efrem Lukatsky/AP)
Among other effects of the Chornobyl catastrophe is what the OECD calls the psychological fallout. The disaster happened during the early years of glasnost and perestroika. The OECD report – written by an international team headed by Dr. Peter Waight of Canada – says:
"After nearly 70 years of repression, the ordinary people of the Soviet Union were beginning openly to express all the dissatisfaction and frustration that they had been harbouring, distrust and hatred of the central government and the Communist system could be expressed for the first time without too much fear of reprisal. In addition, nationalism was not repressed.
"The Chornobyl accident appeared to epitomise everything that was wrong with the old system, such as secrecy, withholding information and a heavy-handed authoritarian approach. Opposition to Chornobyl came to symbolise not only anti-nuclear and ant-Communist sentiment but also was associated with an upsurge in nationalism."
There seems little doubt that the legacy of Chornobyl will be around for many years to come. Several million people still live on land that remains highly contaminated. Since the half-life of cesium-137 – the major radioactive element released – is more than 30 years, critics say we won't know the full extent of the disaster's health affects for decades more.
External links
The fallout from the Chernobyl accident spread across Europe
Chernobyl Ten Years on Radiological and Health Impact Nuclear Energy Agency
Chernobyl.com Home page for independent resource and information about radiation disaster.
Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster
Nuclear Disasters and Accidents Think Quest
Nuclear Power Stations in Russia
Dr. Meshkati's Page on Chornobyl University of South California
Chernobyl.com.ua A charity site
"The Chernobyl Catastrophe" - Greenpeace report (PDF File)
In Focus: Chernobyl - from the International Atomic Energy Agency
CBC does not endorse and is not responsible for the content of external sites. Links will open in new window.
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Population: 47,732,079
Government type: Republic
Capital: Kiev
Independence: Aug. 24, 1991
Industries: coal, electric power, ferrous and nonferrous metals, machinery and transport equipment, chemicals, food processing (especially sugar)
GDP: $260.4 billion
Unemployment: 3.7% officially registered; large number of unregistered or underemployed workers
Population below poverty line: 29%
Life expectancy: men 61.35 years, women 72.27 years
Languages: Ukrainian, Russian, Romanian, Polish, Hungarian
Ethnic groups: Ukrainian 77.8%, Russian 17.3%, Belarusian 0.6%, Moldovan 0.5%, Crimean Tatar 0.5%, Bulgarian 0.4%, Hungarian 0.3%, Romanian 0.3%, Polish 0.3%, Jewish 0.2%, other 1.8%
Religions: Ukrainian Orthodox – Moscow Patriarchate 26.5%, Ukrainian Orthodox – Kyiv Patriarchate 20%, Ukrainian Catholic (Uniate) 13%, Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox, Protestant, Jewish
Source: CIA World Factbook
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