Accident’s legacy still radiating..
Today marks 38 years since the catastrophic disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear plant
IT REMAINS the worst nuclear accident in global history.
When the Chernobyl disaster happened on April 26, 1986, it shocked the world like an apocalypse movie come to life.
Today, 38 years on from the horror, it is marked by the United Nations as Chernobyl Disaster Remembrance Day.
The accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine was caused by a mixture of machine error and human failure.
Technicians attempted a poorly designed experiment which involved shutting down the regulating and emergency safety systems.
It resulted in an explosion and fire at Reactor 4, which killed two people and led shortly after to the deaths of another 28 of Acute Radiation Syndrome (ARD), also known as radiation sickness.
It spread radioactive cloud over swathes of the Soviet Union, exposing 8.4million people to radiation.
It sent 400 times more radioactive material intothe Earth’s atmosphere than the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
Located 30 kilometres from Kyiv and about 20km from the Belarus border, the disaster mostly affected Ukraine, Belarus and the Russian Federation.
It resulted in the immediate evacuation of those 135,000 living within its 30km exclusion zone.
But due to rain and wind its effects went much further afield, making its way across northern Europe and even travelled as far as Ireland.
In May 1986, an occurrence of radioactivity was recorded here, from a radiation plume over the country, particularly in the areas of Sligo, Donegal and Roscommon.
Chernobyl’s legacy is still felt today, environmentally and on the population, both physically and mentally.
Mutations occurred in plants and animals, with leaves changing shape and animals born with deformities.
Toxic elements dispersed included plutonium, which causes lung disease and cancer; iodine, which causes thyroid cancers, strontium; linked with leukaemia, and caesium which causes damage to the liver and spleen.
Caesium is now understood to remain in the atmosphere for up to 320 years.
There has been an increase in thyroid cancers in those who were children at the time of the disaster and the fallout is still causing birth defects and deformities.
Psychological affects include a rise in suicide, depression and alcoholism in the populations worst affected.
The catastrophe caused social and economic disruption and led to the resettlement of hundreds of thousands of people.
It also led to major safety changes in the industry and increased co-operation between east and west, before the Soviet Union fell in 1991. Russian president Mikhail Gorbachev said Chernobyl was a key factor in the Soviet fall.
The city of Pripyat, just 3km from the power plant, with a population of 50,000 was evacuated and now remains a concrete graveyard.
Chernobyl itself was closed as a power plant in 2000.
On the anniversary today of the disaster, campaigner Adi Roche – who founded the Chernobyl Children’s Project to help kids living in its aftermath – said: “Remember the victims and survivors of Chernobyl, the worst nuclear accident of the nuclear age.”
“This Friday April 26 marks United Nations Chernobyl Disaster Remembrance Day, ratified by the UN.
“On that fateful day in 1986, a new word ‘Chernobyl’ entered the history of language, the history of world disasters and of the world itself.
“Unfortunately, like many disasters, they pass quickly out of sight and out of mind, Chernobyl is like ancient history. But not for the victims.
“While it happened almost 40 years ago, its impact continues to stalk generations. It remains locked in the land, water, air and DNA of all life.
“Chernobyl isn’t something from the past, Chernobyl was forever, is forever.
“The impact of this single, shocking nuclear accident launched an invisible war that can never be undone.
“Research has shown almost one million people died worldwide in the toxic aftermath.
“Any dose of ionised radiation is an overdose and often puts the burden of proof on the victims.”