Pripyat: 16 Years a City, 30 Years a Ghost Town

30th Anniversary of Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster

Pripyat was founded on 4 February 1970 to serve the nearby Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. By the time it was evacuated, on April 27, 1986, the day after the Chernobyl disaster, the ninth nuclear city in the Soviet Union had a population of about 49,400.

Chernobyl NPP, [The V. I. Lenin Nuclear Power Station] was commissioned in 1970. The first reactor came online in 1977, followed by Reactor No. 2 (1978), No. 3 (1981), and No. 4 (1983). Between them, the four reactors were producing about 10 percent of Ukraine’s electricity before the core meltdown.

A power surge blew the roof off the reactor No. 4, releasing radioactive clouds across Eastern Europe, and leaving entire regions in three countries—Ukraine, Russia and Belarus—unlivable.

The explosion has so far claimed at least a million lives, and counting.

Ukraine’s Chernobyl nuclear power plant underwent a core meltdown [center] in 1986 with disastrous consequences. The radionuclide levels still exceed the normal background in 60 Ukrainian towns and villages. This image was taken by authorities in the former Soviet Union.

The radiation contaminated 50,000 square kilometers of land across 12 regions in Ukraine, and forced hundreds of villages to be relocated. In neighboring Belarus 20 percent of the entire country’s land area was also contaminated.

The radionuclide levels still exceed the normal background in 60 Ukrainian towns and villages.

Today, a second casing is being built to contain the radiation, which is still being emitted by the reactor because the old sarcophagus is crumbling.

Never Ending Nightmare at

“In mid-February [2013,] a 600-square-meter section of the roof at the Chernobyl site collapsed, sparking fears of another disaster. The collapse occurred 70 meters above the sarcophagus that contains the radiation from the damaged No. 4 reactor,” said a report.

Experts estimate that 200 tons of radioactive corium [a molten, lava-like mixture of nuclear reactor core materials, containing nuclear fuel, fission products, control rods, structural materials and other substances found in a reactor core,] several dozen tons of highly contaminated dust and 16 tons of uranium and plutonium remain under the existing sarcophagus that covers the disaster stricken power plant.

Birth defects and cancer were the norm for many years following the Chernobyl disaster.  By the time  residents of Pripyat were ordered to evacuate, about two days after the Chernobyl core meltdown had occurred, many had already been exposed to varying doses of radiation poisoning.

1 Million Killed in Chernobyl Disaster

“A report by Alexey Yablokov, Vassily Nesterenko and Alexey Nesterenko which appeared in the Annals of the New York Academy of Science showed that by 2004, there were 985,000 additional deaths worldwide caused by the nuclear disaster, including 212,000 of within Western Russia, Belarus and Ukraine.”

Related Links

• 29th Anniversary of Chernobyl NPP Disaster April 26, 2015
• Chernobyl Ecological Disaster 28 Years On April 23, 2014
• Japan Renews Nuke Ambitions Despite Fukushima, Common Sense December 14, 2013
• Chernobyl legacy to linger long after most humans have gone April 26, 2012
• Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment May 6, 2011
• Chernobyl nuclear disaster: 25th anniversary April 26, 2011
• Chernobyl: The Day After April 27, 2010
• Chernobyl: A Night to Remember! April 27, 2009

 

“Apocalyptic” Haboob Sweeps through Belarus

Haboob strikes Ukraine/Belarus border turning daylight into night in Soligorsk, Belarus 

A haboob laced with high winds and torrential rains swept through portions of Belarus, including the capital, Minsk, cutting-off electricity, felling trees and damaging buildings this week, the local media reported.

A haboob (Arabic:”blast/ draft”) is an intense dust storm propelled by an atmospheric gravity current.

The following video from YouTube was available only in the original language.

 

Fighting Continues in Ukraine…

Ukraine crises: 1,213,011 registered IDPs; 6,108 killed; 15,450 wounded  —MoSP

As of early April, at least 1,213,011 people in Ukraine have registered as IDPs across the country. Some 6,108 have been killed and 15,450 others wounded, according to the Ministry of Social Policy (MoSP).

Total number of Ukrainians who have sought asylum, residence permits or other forms of legal stay in neighboring countries currently stand at 777,355 including 636,544 in Russia and 80,994 in Belarus, reported UNHCR.

Meantime, rapidly increasing food prices has led to lower food consumption, severely affecting the lives of millions in the eastern oblasts of the country, said the report.

Access to social services, especially pension and salaries, remains suspended in the conflict-affected zone.

[The above figures do not include victims from renewed fighting in January and February, said the UN.]

Other highlights of the UN report

• At least 1,522 social facilities in need of restoration.
• An estimated472 schools have been damaged including at least 10 that have been fully destroyed in non-government controlled areas of Donetsk Oblast. A further eight schools have been closed.
• About 2,000 kilometers of water pipelines have been damaged/destroyed, according to Donbas Water Company. [Donbas region in eastern Ukraine comprises of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts.]

Chernobyl: The Day After

Chernobyl Happened Yesterday!

City of Chernobyl had managed to live for 793 years…

Reactor number 4 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant exploded on April 26, 1986 at about 1:00am local time.  The explosion killed at least  four plant employees instantly.

By the time  residents of Pripyat, a town located near the plant, were ordered to evacuate, about two days after the Chernobyl core meltdown had occurred, many had already been exposed to varying doses of radiation poisoning.

Ukraine’s Chernobyl nuclear power plant underwent a core meltdown [center] in 1986 with disastrous consequences. This image was taken by authorities in the former Soviet Union

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. A UN report released in 2005 estimated the number of victims at just 4,000. Their figure is hotly disputed  by NGOs and independent experts.

“A report by Alexey Yablokov, Vassily Nesterenko and Alexey Nesterenko which appeared in the Annals of the New York Academy of Science showed that by 2004, there were 985,000 additional deaths worldwide caused by the nuclear disaster, including 212,000 of them within Western Russia, Belarus and Ukraine.”

The Poisoned land. Up to 5 million people continue to live on radioactive contaminated land. About 85% of the children who live in contaminated areas of Belarus today are ill, a near 6-fold increase compared to the time before the explosion (15%), according to The Belarusian National Academy of Sciences.

Chernobyl and Other Nuclear Stats

• More than 95% of the radioactive material (180 metric tons with a radioactivity of about 18 million curies) still remains inside the Chernobyl reactor.
• Immediately after the accident, 237 people suffered from acute radiation sickness, and 31 died within the first 90 days of the disaster.
• About 135,000 people were evacuated from the area surrounding the plant, including 50,000 from the town of Pripyat.
• The Academy’s  estimate for the number of casualties  are more than 90,000 deaths and more than a quarter of a million cancer cases.
• The Ukrainian National Commission for Radiation Protection calculates the number of radiation casualties at half a million  deaths so far.
• Some 436 commercial nuclear power reactors are  operating in 30 countries ( total capacity of 372,000 MWe) each of which is potentially as dangerous as Chernobyl, if not worse.
• An estimated 56 countries operate more than 250 research reactors.
• At least 220 nuclear reactors power military ships and submarines.

Related Links:

• Chernobyl: A Night to Remember!
• All is NOT Well at Chernobyl
• Indian Power Workers Drink Radioactive Water
• Obama Goes Nuclear!
• World’s Worst Polluted Places
• Three Mile Island Cats Have 9 Lives, Too?
• French Nuke Waste Plagues Siberia

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