On April 26, 1986, there was a catastrophic accident at the USSR's nuclear power plant
near Chernobyl. Despite the deaths caused by the explosion at Chernobyl, other effects of the
disaster are arguably much worse. Here are some of the worst things about the Chernobyl disaster.
The meltdown at Chernobyl never should have happened. Especially considering there was
plenty of warning something would go wrong before the reactors there had even been
built. Chernobyl's reactors were the same kind as those at a nuclear facility in Leningrad.
When those powered up for the first time in 1973, at least three major problems with the Soviets'
new reactor design quickly became obvious. This includes important differences between
how the inventors predicted the design would work and how it actually did work.
But no one bothered to look into those issues. That meant no one had any idea
how this new type of reactor would behave in an accident. On November 30th, 1975,
over a decade before the Chernobyl disaster, the Leningrad reactors suffered a partial meltdown.
As the plant was brought back online after scheduled maintenance, it began to run out of
control. No one could stop the chain reaction, and radiation poured into the atmosphere.
The official line from the commission set up to discover what caused the
accident was that a small manufacturing defect was to blame. What they really
found were "design faults inherent in the reactor." Those findings were suppressed,
but the commission did make recommendations on various changes to the reactor type.
These included new safety regulations and a faster emergency protection system. The recommendations
were ignored, and Chernobyl was built with the same fundamentally flawed reactor as Leningrad.
When Chernobyl went into meltdown, from the outside, everything looked fine other than a
relatively small fire. And the Soviet government was in no hurry to announce what happened,
even to their own people. It was scientists in Sweden who first noticed something was
up and alerted the outside world to the radioactive fallout pouring from around Kyiv.
The USSR remained silent, even as international news covered Chernobyl as a major disaster.
Moscow went so far as to officially deny anything was wrong. When their state TV
finally had to admit there'd been an accident, it assured Russians the West was spreading "false
propaganda." They claimed that a meltdown at Chernobyl was "virtually impossible." They also
made the bold statement that while there'd been a bit of an issue, "the trouble [had] passed."
"The Soviet people, have faced the challenge and risen to the task. And they and everyone
in this room are to be commended." This was, of course, a massive cover-up.
Initially, the people living close to the biggest nuclear accident in history had no idea the
danger they were facing. No official wanted the responsibility of ordering the reactor turned off,
which led to explosions. That delay, plus a change in wind pattern, meant radiation was pouring over
the nearby town of Pripyat . The government repeatedly refused to order an evacuation, and
plant workers were forbidden from telling anyone about the accident. But rumors started to swirl.
Finally, after two days of dithering, officials gave residents less than an hour to evacuate.
Being told you have 50 minutes to pack, grab your family, leave your animal as well as
larger valuables, and get out, is unbelievably stressful, no matter what the reason. And the
effects were obvious on Chernobyl evacuees. According to the World Health Organization,
116,000 people were evacuated immediately, with an additional 230,000 following over the next few
years. This massive, forced relocation was "a deeply traumatic experience."
The stress brought on by losing their homes and social networks is one of the often-overlooked
tolls on those affected. Even as far away as Kyiv, the government mandated that children go
to summer camps just in case. Pregnant women and mothers of young children were also sent away,
quote, "dividing families with little consideration for the lasting social effects."
While many Chernobyl evacuees suffered from anxiety and depression, it was especially hard
on the old. In a culture where your connection to the land is important, one medical professional
said older people who were relocated died of anguish. It's not clear how many people died
as a result of the trauma of Chernobyl. However, the stress from a similar meltdown at Fukushima
in 2011 is estimated to have killed 1,539 people. Perhaps the worst part was that only 25 percent of
the relocations were even necessary. A paper in the Process Safety and Environmental Protection
journal found that these forced migrations were "groundless, both medically and socially."
The trauma of Chernobyl didn't end quickly. In 2013, a study at USC found millions of people
were still suffering from mental problems related to the accident. Children who had
been relocated were subjected to bullying in their new schools, while some adults had to
deal with job loss. There was even a resulting mistrust in doctors. Both relocated people and
those who got to stay put showed "negative psychological impact." A 2011 study found
"significant neuropsychological consequences" for those affected, including diminished quality
of life, depression, anxiety, and PTSD. A 2016 article in the World Psychiatry
journal noted that pregnant women, mothers, and those who cleaned up Chernobyl were in
particular danger of long-term mental health issues. The cleaners, known as liquidators,
had higher rates of self-harm, suicidal ideations, and common mental disorders.
People in areas exposed to radiation reported poorer life satisfaction rates and socio-economic
as well. The authors warned kids at the time might now be suffering mental issues as adults.
The World Health Organization says part of the problem may have been the social stigma of being
an "exposed person." The government and media also labeled those affected as
"victims" rather than "survivors" of the accident, which harmed their mental state.
The Lancet reported mental health issues were, quote, "the biggest public-health
problem to emerge from the disaster," and they rival even the more obvious physical effects.
Women have the right to terminate their pregnancies in many countries today,
and this was legally the case in the USSR in 1986. However, a decision like that should
be based on accurate information. And it goes without saying that they certainly shouldn't
be forced or tricked into ending a pregnancy they want to keep. Unfortunately, that is what
happened on a massive scale after Chernobyl. After the meltdown, "radiophobia" spread
in society and among medical professionals specifically. Doctors thought the government
was lying to them about how bad the contamination was. They were afraid that women who were pregnant
were going to give birth to children with severe birth defects. They encouraged their patients
to terminate, and 100,000 to 200,000 wanted pregnancies ended. As far away as Denmark,
there was a pronounced uptick in abortions. One nuclear engineer says it went further,
claiming that there were forced abortions. She said that the government secretly ordered all
pregnant women within 18 miles of Chernobyl to be induced early. She heavily implied that if the
babies were born alive, they were disposed of. But in the end, there was no uptick in birth
defects at all. In 1987, a doctor said not one child in the area was born with "any
detectable abnormalities" and that they "weren't expecting any." Which does beg the question of
why so many women were told there would be such terrible problems. The only long-term
effect on Chernobyl babies appears to be an increased rate of thyroid cancer as adults.
Liquidators, the brave people who cleaned up Chernobyl for three years after the accident,
were screwed over from the beginning. We don't know exactly how many individuals were involved,
but it was hundreds of thousands. The government suppressed information on how dangerous the job
was. "Do
you taste metal?" "Yeah, what is that?"
"I don't know." Almost all liquidators
were sent in with inadequate protection against radiation. When machines broke under the pressure,
they moved the radioactive debris with their hands. One fireman said they knew it was a
deadly mission. At least 28 died horribly within weeks, while another 4,000 are said to have died
from radiation-caused cancers later on. As many as 70,000 people became disabled from the exposure.
You'd think the governments involved would be grateful, but the liquidators are still fighting
for support today. They are much more likely to have mental health problems, as well as physical
problems. Life is difficult for a lot of them and they depend on the state for help. In 2006,
Russian media reported a group of liquidators took the government to court. They demanded monetary
compensation for the damage to their health. That same year, liquidators protested in Kyiv,
saying Ukraine was quickly forgetting about them and cutting their benefits. 2011 saw
thousands of Estonian Chernobyl veterans rally in support of the 1,300 who get no financial support
from the state at all. And Ukraine hadn't made any positive strides in five years.
Because, also in 2011, 40 liquidators there went on hunger strike to protest further benefit cuts.
The most pronounced long-term physical health effect among survivors of Chernobyl is thyroid
cancer. Kids especially appear to have gotten cancer from drinking radioactive milk. Since
children drink a lot of milk and have different metabolisms and smaller thyroids than adults, they
were more susceptible to developing cancer there. By 2005, 6,000 survivors who were children and
adolescents at the time of the disaster developed thyroid cancer. Removal of the thyroid resulted
in a distinct neck scar that became known as the "Chernobyl necklace" and carried a stigma
with it. The good news is, virtually all the individuals who got thyroid cancer survived.
Unfortunately, the issue isn't over. In 2016, a journalist, in what is now Belarus,
saw cows grazing near signs warning radiation was higher than normal. When offered a glass of milk,
he sent a sample to a lab to see if it was still dangerous all these years on, and it was.
When he wrote an article telling the public the milk's radioactive isotope level was 10
times higher than the safe level, the dairy company involved sued him. The government
also wanted to suppress the findings. Milk is a huge export for the country and pointing out
it's still affected by Chernobyl wouldn't be good for the economy. The company won the suit,
so plenty of people in the area are still drinking contaminated, potentially cancer-causing milk.
The animals around Chernobyl didn't get a warning there was radiation everywhere. But
Chernobyl affected them badly. Ranchers noticed a dramatic increase in genetic abnormalities in farm
animals born after the accident. The pictures are horrible, like those of an eight-legged
foal and a cow with its mouth and nose the wrong way around. The birth defects continued
showing up for years. They were so severe the animals usually only lived a few hours.
The debate over how animals living near Chernobyl are doing now is highly contentious.
While there are signs wild animals are thriving, some studies say not so much.
In 2009, there were still regular occurrences of deformed animals living near Chernobyl.
Barn swallows appeared to be badly affected. Grazing animals like elk may have looked fine,
but they had high rates of radiation in their body. Aquatic organisms
faced “ongoing genetic instability," and invertebrates had a very hard time of it.
There's also the Chernobyl dog population. The pets left behind bred successfully and seem to
be thriving, but because dogs get into everything and they may have high levels of radiation.
Contaminated for thousands of years By some estimates, much of the area
around Chernobyl won't be safe for human habitation for 3,000 years.
One geologist thinks it's more like a million. When the reactor blew, it only lost 5 percent
of its enriched uranium. That means 190 tons are still in Chernobyl's shell. It's now part of a
"radioactive blob of uranium, concrete, steel and assorted junk weighing about 2,000 tons."
Unfortunately, the technology to safely take that blob apart and dispose of it doesn't exist yet,
and won't for a few decades in even the best-case scenarios. The only option currently available
is containing the site underneath a new "sarcophagus," built in 2017. But even
that will only last 100 years. One Ukrainian energy policy expert's actual solution is:
"We will have smart children and smart grandchildren who in 100
years or so will figure out what to do." The logistics of containing an unplanned
nuclear waste dump until the year 4986 are almost beyond comprehension. Still,
some people aren't willing to wait. A few brave settlers have moved back to just outside,
or occasionally in, the exclusion zone. But even the "good" area is still radioactive,
and some residents go about their daily lives with Geiger counters around their necks.
Nuclear power was thought to be the next big thing in the 1970s. Compared to coal it was cheap and
much better for the planet. But then Three Mile Island and Chernobyl happened within seven years,
and effectively ended the growth of global nuclear-power capacity.
After the second accident, almost everyone accepted fossil fuels as the better route.
The U.S. didn't open a single nuclear power plant between 1996 and 2016. Meanwhile,
most countries have been burning fossil fuels like there's no tomorrow. Now people are finally
starting to realize if countries keep doing that there may not be a tomorrow, and the opinion of
nuclear energy, the greenest energy available on a large scale, has become "more favorable."
Nuclear was probably the better choice from the beginning, in terms of body count.
Deadly meltdowns are vanishingly rare, and Chernobyl could kill an estimated 4,000 people.
But every single year in the U.S., "particulate matter from coal power
plants" kills about 7,500 people. A switch to nuclear, which Chernobyl helped delay,
could have saved some of those lives, plus slowed down the destruction of the environment.
Chernobyl gave Earth a major dose of radiation in 1986, and global warming is going to make
sure that continues. In 2019, scientists studied glaciers in 17 sites across the world, from the
Arctic to the Antarctic. According to phys.org, they found the levels of radioactive material
were, quote, "some of the highest levels you see in the environment outside nuclear exclusion
zones." In some cases, 10 times higher. Every single site had nuclear fallout present, and not
deep down, but on the rapidly melting surface ice. To be fair, it's not all Chernobyl's fault. Any
time radioactive material is released into the atmosphere, whether from nuclear tests,
the bombings of Japan, or other meltdowns, it ends up mixing with clouds. If it falls as snow
onto the ice, the heavy sediment results in concentrated levels of nuclear residue.
To be less fair to Chernobyl, the disaster released huge amounts of radioactive material
into the atmosphere. When researchers took core samples of the glaciers, they could
see a "clear spike" in nuclear sediment from it. The main concern is americium, which is produced
when plutonium decays. This element has a half-life of 400 years. It's soluble, which
means it may end up in the food chain as global warming melts the glaciers. However, there isn't
enough data to know how much of the "particularly dangerous" element could make it back to humans.
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