“Chernobyl Changes a Community Forever” - This Day in History – Apr 26th

Chernobyl Nuclear Plant Disaster

Back in 1986, the region of Kiev, which was the home of 150,000 people in the Ukraine, suffered at this date the worst nuclear accident at their plant in Chernobyl.  This disaster killed thousands of people and as many as 70,000 individuals suffered radiation poisoning.  To this day, no one has yet lived in this area, which could continue for at least for another 100 or so years. 

According to history.com, “The Soviet Union built the Chernobyl plant, which had four 1,000-megawatt reactors, in the town of Pripyat. At the time of the explosion, it was one of the largest and oldest nuclear power plants in the world. The explosion and subsequent meltdown of one reactor was a catastrophic event that directly affected hundreds of thousands of people. Still, the Soviet government kept its own people and the rest of the world in the dark about the accident until days later.” 

“At first, the Soviet government only asked for advice on how to fight graphite fires and acknowledged the death of two people. It soon became apparent, however, that the Soviets were covering up a major accident and had ignored their responsibility to warn both their own people and surrounding nations. Two days after the explosion, Swedish authorities began measuring dangerously high levels of radioactivity in their atmosphere.” 

By May of 1986, concrete encasing was being constructed at the reactor.  History.com stated that, “Later, Hans Blix of the International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed that approximately 200 people were directly exposed and that 31 had died immediately at Chernobyl.” 

At least 4,000 clean-up workers died from helping with the clean up. Furthermore, the extreme radiation from this nuclear meltdown event increased people in the area being diagnosed with Thyroid Cancer.

All History facts provided from the link below:

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/maria-shriver-marries-arnold-schwarzenegger?catId=12