Chernobyl: the mother of all nuclear disasters

Any discussion regarding the risk of nuclear energy is incomplete in my opinion without the discussion of the Chernobyl disaster which took place on 26 April, 1986. Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words, so I thought I would share these emotional images taken by British photographer Michael Day who visited the ghost town of Pripyat in Northern Ukraine in 2011 to witness the horrors of the disaster. Looking at these pictures, it it hard to believe that this bustling town was home to 40,000 people at some point in history.

An abandoned room inside the Palace of Culture in Pripyat

Empty lecture theatre

Empty town of Pripyat

Causes of the Chernobyl disaster

The cause of the disaster have been hotly debated and still remains a cause for concern for many scientists around the world. Essentially, stress tests were initiated in order to see how the nuclear plant would react to a power failure, however the reactor capacity was dropped to around 20%. On top of that, Kortov and Ustyantsev (2013) claim that the insertion of protection rods led to an immense increase in reactivity which led to a blast. The immense scale of the reactor explosion could be blamed upon the lack of equipment which was present at the site according to a report commissioned by the Ukrainian government (edited by Baloga in 2011). Staff did not have adequate access to radiometric equipment which meant that the radiation levels around the plant could not be measured straight after the accident struck according to the Nuclear Energy Institute's investigation - this caused the death of 28 reactor staff.

100 times more radiation than the Nagasaki and Hiroshima nuclear disaster was released by the fire which raged for over 10 days. As the figure below shows, increased radiation doses were recorded all across Europe on a scale which had never been witnessed before.

Increased radiation dose all across Europe in the aftermath of the disaster

I found this video online from the BBC 1 documentary called 'Surviving Disaster' (2006) which shows a reconstructed version of how the Chernobyl disaster happened from the perspective of a scientist called Valeri Legasov, one of the staff working at the plant. Personally I found it quite interesting, however it has received quite critical comments on social media for not having consideration for the reality of what happened. Have a look for yourself and let me know what you think:

Thyroid cancer in children 

Not only did the disaster affect adults, it also ruined the lives of many young children. According to a report by the United National Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (2003), 2000 cases of thyroid cancer were reported in children under the age of 18 during 1900-1998 in Belarus, Ukraine and the former Russian Federation. As the intake of milk is higher in children and their thyroid gland is more sensitive to radiation (Hatch et al. 2005), children were the most affected. And every since then, the number of cases of thyroid cancer have risen to around 5000 according to the World Health Organisation.  

Social effects from Chernobyl

We have all probably lost a loved one, maybe a friend or one of our close relatives. However, the sheer social trauma of Chernobyl is something that needs to be highlighted more often in the public sphere. In total, 330,000 people had to be resettled as a result of the disaster and approximately seven million people are still reliant on benefit payments due to their illness or other mental conditions. Not only that, but the sudden trauma of the event and the aftermath has led to a plethora of issues such as suicide, victimisation of the survivors and state repression of people who want to come out and express their feelings (Barnett 2007). I believe that social media is a key force which can help the survivors of Chernobyl bring their voices out across the world. I found this particular quote from the book 'Voice from Chernobyl' by Svetlana Alexievich published in 1997 quite strong as it includes a real story from a father who lost his daughter in the aftermath of the disaster:

'We put her on the door....on the door that my father lay on. Until they brought a little coffin. It was small, like the box for a large doll. I want to bear witness: my daughter died from Chernobyl. And they want us to forget about it'. 

Stories like these truly bring forward the human tragedy that was felt as a result of the disaster on 26th April 1986. Chernobyl should be seen as a clear lesson for governments across the world in terms of nuclear safety and governance. However, the sad fact is that lessons have still not been learnt. Despite the official Exclusion Zone (18 miles) around the power plant, the town of Pripyat is gathering the attention of tourists who want to see the town which is stuck in time. The sad fact is that Pripyat will never be the same again...