World’s Worst Polluted Places

Top 10 Worst polluted places [Source: Blacksmith Institute]

CHERNOBYL, UKRAINE

Estimated No. of Affected People: Initially 5.5 million [the figure is now disputed.]

Escaped Pollutants: Radioactive dust including uranium, plutonium, cesium-137, strontium and other metals

Source of Pollution: Meltdown of reactor core in 1986

The Incident: A meltdown of the reactor’s core in the Chernobyl power plant killed thirty people in 1986. About 135,000 people were evacuated. It is believed that about one hundred times more radiation was released in the accident than by the atom bombs dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

Legacy: More than 4000 cases of thyroid cancer were diagnosed among children and adolescents between 1992 to 2002 in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine. Victims under 14 years were most severely affected by the elevated concentrations of radioiodine found in milk.

Incidents of skin lesions, respiratory ailments, infertility and birth defects were readily found among the more than five million people who inhabit the affected areas of Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine for many years following the accident.

Disputed Facts: The above facts, however, have been disputed by a number of individuals including the author of a recent WHO report, and the retired “nukophile” British academic, James Lovelack. Local and international experts, however, have dismissed the WHO report findings.