CHERNOBYL POWER PLANT

Introduction

Nuclear power plants generate and releases radioactive chemicals to the environment. Accidents
caused by nuclear power plants can result in serious radioactive pollution. For example, in
Chernobyl, Ukraine, the worst nuclear reactor accident occurred in 1986 from the meltdown of
the reactor core and combustion of graphite moderator, releasing a large amount of radioactivity
into the ambient environment. This disaster resulted in the death of over 31 workers and
hospitalization of over 500 residents from radiation sickness. A decade after, over 10,000
residents died from cancers and other radiation-related sickness.

THE REAL STORY OF CHERNOBYL, THE WORST NUCLEAR DISASTER IN HISTORY

The 'Chernobyl Sarcophagus Memorial' statue, depicting a pair of hands holding a nuclear power plant,
in front of the real Chernobyl power plant and sarcophagus

The Chernobyl Sarcophagus Memorial sculpture was erected in 2006 and is dedicated to the memory of
the heroic plant workers and emergency crew who prevented a global catastrophe | Image:
Amort1939 / Pixabay

Modern History of Science and Technology

On 26th April 1986, a routine safety test went catastrophically wrong and triggered the worst nuclear
accident of all time. The incident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant near Pripyat, Ukraine led to the
release of 400 times more radiation than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima during
WW2.Emergency response begins

Firefighters quickly arrived on the scene but without proper protective clothing, many perished in the
coming months from acute radiation syndrome. By dawn, all the fires were suppressed except for the
one in the reactor core.

The other three reactors were shut down a short while later. The following day officials ordered
helicopters to begin dumping more than 5,000 tonnes of sand, lead, clay, and boron onto the burning
reactor to help extinguish the core fire.
Chernobyl disaster

Background of Chernobyl

Lying just 10 miles from the Belarus-Ukraine border and around 62 miles north of the Ukrainian capital
Kyiv, the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant was commissioned in 1977 as part of the old Soviet Union, with
the first reactor supplying power to the grid later that year. By 1984, four reactors had entered
commercial operation, each capable of producing 1,000 megawatts of electrical power.

Just under two miles from the plant was the city of Pripyat, founded in 1970 and named after the nearby
river. It was built to serve the power plant and at the time of the disaster, its total population was just
shy of 50,000.Nuclear disaster unfolds

Throughout Friday, 25th April 1986, Chernobyl's engineers lowered power at Reactor No. 4 in
preparation for a safety test to be conducted later that evening. The test was supposed to check
whether the reactor turbines could continue powering emergency water coolant pumps in the event of
a power failure.

Ironically, the safety test was anything but safe as human error and substandard reactor design led to a
partial meltdown of the core.

The experiment was poorly conceived and equally badly executed. Firstly, the less-experienced night
shift crew carried out the safety test and later claimed they had not received full instructions from the
day shift crew on how to properly conduct it. Secondly, the emergency core cooling system for Reactor 4
was disabled along with the emergency shutdown system.

Finally, the reactor’s power level dropped to a dangerously unstable level at which point the engineers
removed most of the control rods in violation of safety guidelines. Although power began to return, it
was far from under control.

Explosion in Reactor 4
At 1:23am on 26th April, the safety test was given the all-clear by plant supervisors. Almost immediately
a power surge occurred, triggering the engineers to re-insert all 211 control rods. The control rods were
graphite tipped, a design flaw that would prove fatal as they increased the reaction in the core, instead
of lowering it.

The subsequent steam explosions blew off the steel and concrete lid of the reactor as the core suffered
a partial meltdown. Two engineers were killed instantly whilst two more suffered severe burns. The
explosion, along with the resulting fires, released at least 5% of the radioactive reactor core into the
atmosphere. Blown by the wind, radioactive materials were spread to many parts of Europe over the
coming days. Heroism on display

In the days that followed, hundreds of workers risked their lives to contain radiation leaking from the
reactor core.

On 4th May, three divers made their way through the dark flooded basement of Reactor 4 to turn valves
and drain the ‘bubbler pools’ sitting below the core. Had they not succeeded in their mission, molten
nuclear material would have eventually melted its way down to the pools.

This would have triggered a radiation-contaminated steam explosion and destroyed the entire plant
along with its three other reactors, causing unimaginable damage and nuclear fallout that the world
would have struggled to recover from.

Radioactive debris also needed to be removed from the roof of the reactor. After robots failed to do the
job, workers equipped with heavy protective gear were sent in.

Nicknamed ‘Bio-robots’, these workers were unable to spend more than 90 seconds on the roof due to
the extreme levels of radiation. In the end, 5,000 men went up on the irradiated rooftop to successfully
clear the radioactive material from it.

Clean-up commences

By mid-May, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev had ordered thousands of firefighters, miners, and
soldiers to begin the long and arduous task of cleaning up. Known as ‘Liquidators’, 600,000 - 800,000 of
them began burying radioactive debris and topsoil, as well as shooting all wildlife (both domestic and
wild) within the 19-mile exclusion zone surrounding the power plant.

By the end of the year, an enormous concrete and steel structure known as ‘The Sarcophagus’ covered
Reactor 4, limiting the radioactive contamination of the environment. A new structure was put in place
in 2017, confining the radioactive remains of Reactor 4 for the next 100 years.

The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant is a nuclear power plant undergoing decommissioning. ChNPP is
located near the abandoned city of Pripyat in northern Ukraine 16.5 kilometers northwest of the city of
Chernobyl, 16 kilometers from the Belarus–Ukraine border, and about 100 kilometers north of Kyiv.

Year
 Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant

Status Undergoing decommissioning

Construction began 15 August 1972

Commission date 26 September 1977

Decommission date Process ongoing since 2015

History

The Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the former Soviet Union involved a 1000-MW (electrical) boiling
water, graphite-moderated, direct-cycle reactor. The Chernobyl accident occurred on April 26, 1986, and
was initiated during a test of reactor coolant pump operability from the reactor's own turbine
generators.

Nuclear Power: Risk Analysis

Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station Accident

The Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the former Soviet Union involved a 1000-MW (electrical) boiling
water, graphite-moderated, direct-cycle reactor. The Chernobyl accident occurred on April 26, 1986, and
was initiated during a test of reactor coolant pump operability from the reactor's own turbine
generators. The purpose of the test was to determine how long the reactor coolant pumps could be
operated, using electric power from the reactor's own turbine generator under the condition of turbine
coast down and no steam supply from the reactor. However, the experimenters wanted a continuous
steam supply, so they decided to conduct the experiment with the reactor running—a serious mistake.
The test resulted in a coolant flow reduction in the core and extensive boiling. Because of the inherent
properties of this reactor design, the chain reaction increases on boiling, rather than decreases as in U.S.
plants, and a nuclear transient occurred that could not be counteracted by the control system. The
result was a power excursion that caused the fuel to overheat, melt, and disintegrate. Fuel fragments
were ejected into the coolant, causing steam explosions and rupturing fuel channels with such force that
the cover of the reactor was blown off. This accident resulted in approximately 30 fatalities from acute
doses of radiation and the treatment of some 300 people for radiation burn injuries. The off-site
consequences are still under investigation. Latent effects are expected, but they have not been
quantified

The Chernobyl disaster[a] was a nuclear accident that occurred on 26 April 1986 at the No. 4 reactor in
the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, near the city of Pripyat in the north of the Ukrainian SSR in the
Soviet Union.[1] Called the world's worst-ever civil nuclear incident,[2] it is one of only two nuclear
energy accidents rated at seven—the maximum severity—on the International Nuclear Event Scale, the
other being the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan. The initial emergency response, together
with later decontamination of the environment, involved more than 500,000 personnel and cost an
estimated 18 billion roubles—roughly US$68 billion in 2019, adjusted for inflation.
 The Causes of Chernobyl Disaster

The Chernobyl accident in 1986 was the result of a flawed reactor design that was operated
with inadequately trained personnel. The resulting steam explosion and fires released at least 5% of the
radioactive reactor core into the environment, with the deposition of radioactive materials in many
parts of Europe.

What caused the Chernobyl accident?

1. On April 26, 1986, the Number Four RBMK reactor at the nuclear power plant at Chernobyl, Ukraine,
went out of control during a test at low-power, leading to an explosion and fire that demolished the
reactor building and released large amounts of radiation into the atmosphere. Safety measures were
ignored, the uranium fuel in the reactor overheated and melted through the protective barriers. RBMK
reactors do not have what is known as a containment structure, a concrete and steel dome over the
reactor itself designed to keep radiation inside the plant in the event of such an accident. Consequently,
radioactive elements including plutonium, iodine, strontium and caesium were scattered over a wide
area. In addition, the graphite blocks used as a moderating material in the RBMK caught fire at high
temperature as air entered the reactor core, which contributed to emission of radioactive materials into
the environment.

2. How many people died as an immediate result of the accident?

The initial explosion resulted in the death of two workers. Twenty-eight of the firemen and emergency
clean-up workers died in the first three months after the explosion from Acute Radiation Sickness and
one of cardiac arrest.

3. How many people were evacuated?

The entire town of Pripyat (population 49,360), which lay only three kilometres from the plant was
completely evacuated 36 hours after the accident. During the subsequent weeks and months an
additional 67,000 people were evacuated from their homes in contaminated areas and relocated on
government order. In total some 200,0000 people are believed to have been relocated as a result of the
accident.

4. What are the major health effects for exposed populations?

There have been at least 1800 documented cases of thyroid cancer children who were between 0 and
14 years of age when the accident occurred., which is far higher than normal. The thyroid gland of young
children is particularly susceptible to the uptake of radioactive iodine, which can trigger cancers,
treatable both by surgery and medication. Health studies of the registered cleanup workers called in (so-
called “liquidators”) have failed to show any direct correlation between their radiation exposure and an
increase in other forms of cancer or disease. The psychological affects of Chernobyl were and remain
widespread and profound, and have resulted for instance in suicides, drinking problems and apathy.

5. What radioactive elements were emitted into the environment?

There were over 100 radioactive elements released into the atmosphere when Chernobyl’s fourth
reactor exploded. Most of these were short lived and decayed (reduced in radioactivity) very quickly.
Iodine, strontium and cesium were the most dangerous of the elements released, and have half-lives of
8 days, 29 years, and 30 years respectively. The isotopes Strontium-90 and Caesium-137 are therefore
still present in the area to this day. While iodine is linked to thyroid cancer, Strontium can lead to
leukemia. Cesium is the element that travelled the farthest and lasts the longest. This element affects
the entire body and especially can harm the liver and spleen.

The Impact of The Disaster on The Environment and The People Who Lived in The

Surrounding Areas

Overall, in plants and animals, when high doses were sustained at relatively close distances from the
reactor, there was an increase in mortality and a decrease in reproduction. During the first few years
after the accident, plants and animals of the Exclusion Zone showed many genetic effects of
radiation.The Chernobyl accident in 1986 was the result of a flawed reactor design that was operated
with inadequately trained personnel. The resulting steam explosion and fires released at least 5% of the
radioactive reactor core into the environment, with the deposition of radioactive materials in many
parts of Europe.

The accident occurred during a safety test meant to measure the ability of the steam turbine to power
the emergency feedwater pumps of an RBMK-type nuclear reactor in the event of a simultaneous loss of
external power and major coolant leak. During a planned decrease of reactor power in preparation for
the test, the operators accidentally dropped power output to near-zero, due partially to xenon
poisoning. While recovering from the power drop and stabilizing the reactor, the operators removed a
number of control rods which exceeded limits set by the operating procedures. Upon test completion,
the operators triggered a reactor shutdown. Due to a design flaw, this action resulted in localized
increases in reactivity within the reactor (i.e., "positive scram"). That brought about the rupture of fuel
channels and a rapid drop in pressure, thereby prompting the coolant to flash to steam. Neutron
absorption thus dropped, leading to an increase in reactor activity, which further increased coolant
temperatures (a positive feedback loop). This process led to steam explosions and the melting of the
reactor core.[4]

The meltdown and explosions ruptured the reactor core and destroyed the reactor building. This was
immediately followed by an open-air reactor core fire which lasted until 4 May 1986, during which
airborne radioactive contaminants were released and deposited onto other parts of the USSR and
Europe.[5][6] Approximately 70% landed in Byelorussia (now Belarus), 16 kilometres (9.9 mi) away.[7]
The fire released about the same amount of radioactive material as the initial explosion.[3] In response
to the initial accident, a 10-kilometre (6.2 mi) radius exclusion zone was created 36 hours after the
accident, from which approximately 49,000 people were evacuated, primarily from Pripyat. The
exclusion zone was later increased to a radius of 30 kilometres (19 mi), from which an additional
~68,000 people were evacuated.[8]
Following the reactor explosion, which killed two engineers and severely burned two more, a secret
emergency operation to put out the fire, stabilize the reactor, and clean up the ejected radioactive
material began. During the immediate emergency response, 237 workers were hospitalized, of which
134 exhibited symptoms of acute radiation syndrome (ARS). Among those hospitalized, 28 died within
the following three months, all of whom were hospitalized for ARS. In the following 10 years, 14 more
workers (9 who had been hospitalized with ARS) died of various causes mostly unrelated to radiation
exposure.[9]

The Soviet government engaged in a major cover-up of the disaster in 1986. When they finally
acknowledged it, although without any details, the Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS) then
discussed the Three Mile Island accident and other American nuclear accidents, which Serge
Schmemann of The New York Times wrote was an example of the common Soviet tactic of
whataboutism. The mention of a commission also indicated to observers the seriousness of the incident,
[10] and subsequent state radio broadcasts were replaced with classical music, which was a common
method of preparing the public for an announcement of a tragedy in the USSR.[11]

Chernobyl's health effects to the general population are uncertain. An excess of 15 childhood thyroid
cancer deaths were documented as of 2011.[12][13] A United Nations committee found that to date
fewer than 100 deaths have resulted from the fallout.[14] Determining the total eventual number of
exposure related deaths is uncertain based on the linear no-threshold model, a contested statistical
model.[15][16] Model predictions of the eventual total death toll in the coming decades vary. The most
widely cited studies by the World Health Organization predict an eventual 9,000 cancer related fatalities
in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia.[2]

Following the disaster, Pripyat was abandoned and eventually replaced by the new purpose-built city of
Slavutych. The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant sarcophagus was built by December 1986. It reduced the
spread of radioactive contamination from the wreckage and protected it from weathering. The
confinement shelter also provided radiological protection for the crews of the undamaged reactors at
the site, which were restarted in late 1986 and 1987. However, this containment structure was only
intended to last for 30 years, and required considerable reinforcement in the early 2000s. The Shelter
was heavily supplemented in 2017 by the Chernobyl New Safe Confinement, which was constructed
around the old structure. This larger enclosure aims to enable the removal of both the sarcophagus and
the reactor debris while containing the radioactive materials inside. Clean-up is scheduled for
completion by 2065.
Chernobyl accident, Accident at the Chernobyl (Ukraine) nuclear power station in the Soviet Union, the
worst disaster in the history of nuclear power generation. On April 25–26, 1986, technicians attempted a
poorly designed experiment, causing the chain reaction in the core to go out of control. The reactor’s lid
was blown off, and large amounts of radioactive material were released into the atmosphere. A partial
meltdown of the core also occurred. A cover-up was attempted, but, after Swedish monitoring stations
reported abnormally high levels of wind-transported radioactivity, the Soviet government admitted the
truth. As many as 49 people may have died in the initial explosions. Beyond these immediate deaths,
several thousand radiation-induced illnesses and cancer deaths were expected in the long term. The
incident set off an international outcry over the dangers posed by radioactive emissions.

Chernobyl disaster, accident in 1986 at the Chernobyl nuclear power station in the Soviet Union, the
worst disaster in the history of nuclear power generation. The Chernobyl power station was situated at
the settlement of Pryp’yat, 10 miles (16 km) northwest of the city of Chernobyl (Ukrainian: Chornobyl)
and 65 miles (104 km) north of Kyiv, Ukraine. The station consisted of four reactors, each capable of
producing 1,000 megawatts of electric power; it had come online in 1977–83.

The disaster occurred on April 25–26, 1986, when technicians at reactor Unit 4 attempted a poorly
designed experiment. Workers shut down the reactor’s power-regulating system and its emergency
safety systems, and they withdrew most of the control rods from its core while allowing the reactor to
continue running at 7 percent power. These mistakes were compounded by others, and at 1:23 AM on
April 26 the chain reaction in the core went out of control. Several explosions triggered a large fireball
and blew off the heavy steel and concrete lid of the reactor. This and the ensuing fire in the graphite
reactor core released large amounts of radioactive material into the atmosphere, where it was carried
great distances by air currents. A partial meltdown of the core also occurred.

The disaster occurred on April 25–26, 1986, when technicians at reactor Unit 4 attempted a poorly
designed experiment. Workers shut down the reactor’s power-regulating system and its emergency
safety systems, and they withdrew most of the control rods from its core while allowing the reactor to
continue running at 7 percent power. These mistakes were compounded by others, and at 1:23 AM on
April 26 the chain reaction in the core went out of control. Several explosions triggered a large fireball
and blew off the heavy steel and concrete lid of the reactor. This and the ensuing fire in the graphite
reactor core released large amounts of radioactive material into the atmosphere, where it was carried
great distances by air currents. A partial meltdown of the core also occurred.

On April 27 the 30,000 inhabitants of Pryp’yat began to be evacuated. A cover-up was attempted, but on
April 28 Swedish monitoring stations reported abnormally high levels of wind-transported radioactivity
and pressed for an explanation. The Soviet government admitted there had been an accident at
Chernobyl, thus setting off an international outcry over the dangers posed by the radioactive emissions.
By May 4 both the heat and the radioactivity leaking from the reactor core were being contained, albeit
at great risk to workers. Radioactive debris was buried at some 800 temporary sites, and later in the
year the highly radioactive reactor core was enclosed in a concrete-and-steel sarcophagus (which was
later deemed structurally unsound).

Some sources state that two people were killed in the initial explosions, whereas others report that the
figure was closer to 50. Dozens more people contracted serious radiation sickness; some of them later
died. Between 50 and 185 million curies of radionuclides (radioactive forms of chemical elements)
escaped into the atmosphere—several times more radioactivity than that created by the atomic bombs
dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. This radioactivity was spread by the wind over Belarus,
Russia, and Ukraine and soon reached as far west as France and Italy. Millions of acres of forest and
farmland were contaminated, and, although many thousands of people were evacuated, hundreds of
thousands more remained in contaminated areas. In addition, in subsequent years many livestock were
born deformed, and among humans several thousand radiation-induced illnesses and cancer deaths
were expected in the long term. The Chernobyl disaster sparked criticism of unsafe procedures and
design flaws in Soviet reactors, and it heightened resistance to the building of more such plants.
Chernobyl Unit 2 was shut down after a 1991 fire, and Unit 1 remained on-line until 1996. Chernobyl
Unit 3 continued to operate until 2000, when the nuclear power station was officially decommissioned.

The Cleanup Efforts of The Chernobyl Power plant Disaster

It’s been used for everything from bridge construction to paint-stripping aircraft, and NASA once even
considered basing an all-terrain lunar rover on it. But the most important role ever assigned to the
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)’s RoboCrane ultra-stable platform is the job of
helping clean up the site of the worst nuclear accident in history, the former Chernobyl nuclear power
plant in northern Ukraine.

On April 26, 1986, a power surge resulted in a core explosion and fire in Chernobyl’s Unit 4 reactor. The
disaster shot a plume of highly radioactive materials into the atmosphere and made it necessary to
evacuate nearly 340,000 people from the surrounding regions. The International Atomic Energy
Association and the World Health Organization estimate that 4,000 cancer deaths since that date may
be attributable to the radiation released.

A few weeks after the accident, the destroyed reactor was covered by a quickly built concrete and steel
“sarcophagus.” In 1997, the G-7 nations, the European Commission and the Ukraine government began
a program to convert the disaster site into an environmentally safe zone. More than 40 governments
committed more than $1.5 billion, along with $600 million from the European Bank for Reconstruction
and Development, for the cornerstone of the remediation plan, a significantly more stable containment
facility known as the New Safe Confinement (NSC) structure. Expected to be commissioned in early
2018, the arch-shaped NSC, nicknamed the “Mega Tomb,” stands 110 meters (361 feet) tall, 165 meters
(541 feet) long and 257 meters (843 feet) wide, and could easily enclose the Statue of Liberty.

Designed to last at least a century, the shelter isolates the cleanup of the hazardous reactor area. The
workhorse of the remediation effort is a computer-controlled, RoboCrane-inspired platform created by
PaR Systems, a company based in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota, that licensed the NIST technology in
2010. Called TensileTruss, the platform is suspended from a bridge crane-and-trolley system that spans
the entire NSC structure.

The RoboCrane design, incorporated in TensileTruss, was developed in the early 1990s by NIST engineer
and robotics expert James Albus, who expanded on the principle of the Stewart platform used in aircraft
flight simulators. That device uses three pairs of hydraulic jacks to move a platform with six degrees of
freedom (x-, y- and z-axes, along with roll, pitch and yaw). What Albus did was turn the Stewart platform
upside down, manipulating it from above using motor-driven winches rather than from below with
jacks.

Because of this innovation, RoboCrane lifts five times its own weight, suspends a platform much farther
than possible with hydraulics, holds loads rigidly in place even at an angle, and provides a precision-
controlled base for remote operation of various attachments. For its long-term duties at Chernobyl, PaR
Systems will affix a variety of interchangeable, remotely operated tools, including a robotic arm, drill,
jackhammer, high-powered vacuum system and closed-circuit television system.

“The first order of business is dismantling the original sarcophagus, so the TensileTruss system will be
used to sever welds, cut concrete and lift away materials for disposal,” said Rob Owen, a senior program
manager at PaR Systems. “Next, the mobile platform and its attached tools, such as jackhammers and
blow torches, will assist in the removal of the destroyed reactor building. Finally, our system will be
highly involved in the Chernobyl remediation’s most challenging task—removal and disposal of the
highly radioactive fuel debris in the reactor’s melted core.”
Schematics of the tensile truss and the RoboCrane showing the upper support platform, hoists, cables,
and platform for attaching tools

Emergency workers (liquidators) were drafted into the area and helped to clean up the plant premises
and the surrounding area. These workers were mostly plant employees, Ukrainian fire-fighters plus
many soldiers and miners from Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and other parts of the former Soviet Union.

Political Implications of The Chernobyl Power Plant Disaster

In various ways the accident contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union. The accident added to the
public's distrust of government authorities. Within the Soviet leadership, the secrecy over dangerous
operating procedures had a major impact on General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev's thinking.

The recent mini-series on the Chernobyl nuclear accident is a reminder that after 33 years the
consequences of the accident are still very much with us. The costs to public health are extensively
discussed, but the wider political consequences are also still felt. Chernobyl contributed to the collapse
of the Soviet Union, and continues to impact on confidence in nuclear energy around the world.

The Chernobyl power plant in Ukraine (then part of the Soviet Union) comprised four “RBMK” reactors,
a design unique to the Soviet Union. The principal reactor type around the world, the light water
reactor, uses water as both moderator (to slow down neutrons to enable an ongoing nuclear reaction)
and coolant (to remove heat and produce steam for power generation). In contrast, the RBMK uses
graphite (a form of carbon) as the moderator and water as the coolant.

This graphite/water combination presented an inherent safety problem, that under certain operating
conditions the RBMK could be very unstable, resulting in a risk of overheating. The RBMK’s designers
were well aware of this potential safety issue and prepared detailed instructions for reactor operators
on how to avoid such an accident. But the KGB deemed this could be a manual for saboteurs and
classified it Top Secret, so the operators were never aware of the danger.

The Sarcophagus, built to house the Chernobyl nuclear power plant (Photo: Ian Bancroft/Flickr)
On 25–26 April 1986 Chernobyl’s Unit 4 reactor was scheduled for a routine shut down. The plant
managers decided to take advantage of this to conduct a “safety test” – an experiment to see whether,
if there was a failure in the external power grid immediately after shut down, the reactor’s generators
(then spinning down) could produce sufficient power to control the reactor during the time it would
take for the reactor’s emergency generators to cut in (around one minute). The plant managers failed to
obtain safety authorisation for this test. As part of the test (and in violation of safety rules) a number of
the reactor’s safety systems were disabled.

April 26th 1986, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant blew up. Chernobyl was the first power plant in
Soviet Ukraine and seen as a flagship of the peaceful atomic energy of the USSR. Accompanying the
plant, the city of Pripyat was build close by to accommodate the nuclear experts and other workers. The
disaster is thought to have stemmed from flaw in the product of the reactor as well as operating error.
The accident led to thirty fatalities, many due to Acute Radiation Syndrome (ARS). Over two hundred
non- fatal cases of ARS were confirmed in people on site and involved in clean up. The contamination to
the area and intake of radioactive iodine fallout has also been linked to a large proportion of childhood
thyroid diagnosis since the accident. [1]

Political Implications

The Chernobyl accident led to many political consequences along with the health and environmental
issues. Firstly, the accident prompted nuclear energy policy to arise as a significant public issue. It also
led to a distrust and unease between Soviet citizens, specifically those in the evacuated and nearby
areas, and President Gorbachov’s regime. Doubt was casted on Gorbachev's legitimacy and ability to
respond to the incident and protect the soviet citizens. [2]

Before the accident, President Gorbachov had imposed the glasnost policy in hopes to increase the
transparency of Russian politics to the state-- an area that had been considered blurry in the past.
However, the Chernobyl accident caused a regression to old, secretive politics. After the incident,
Gorbachov was criticized for hiding and delaying the relay of crucial information to western civilizations.
Along with a distrust in the Gorbachov regime, Chernobyl also had large financial implications, "end[ing]
any belief in the socio-economic acceleration of the country." [3] The combination of a loss in moral,
lives, and finances has led many to consider the Chernobyl incident to be one of commencing events
that eventually lead to the fall of the Soviet Union.

Pripyat
The town of Pripyat is another example of the political implications in the wake of the Chernobyl
incident. The town had been initially created to house workers, nuclear experts and their families. The
population size of the town was around 50,000 people, all of whom who had to evacuate at the
explosion of reaction number four. The evacuation of Pripyat occurred in just a couple of hours;
however, it took some time for the government to inform the citizens of Pripyat the detrimental extent
of the explosion. [4] Some of the citizens of Pripyat, like many of the firemen, were killed trying to put
out the radioactive fire. Many other citizens were effected by radiation, some cases fatal and others
causing later health issues including thyroid cancer. Since the day of the explosion, the town of Pripyat is
inhabitable. As seen in Fig. 1, many of the buildings have deteriorated and typify the disorder in the
wake of the explosion. A few individuals have returned to the village but these are isolated cases. The
town recently became open for tourist visits. In the wake of the disaster and the lack of human
inhabitants, the wildlife of Pripyat has flourished in the past forty years.

Social Implications of The Chernobyl Power Plant Disaster

The cost of the accident, over two decades, at hundreds of billions of dollars

The Chernobyl nuclear accident, and government policies adopted to cope with its consequences,
imposed huge costs on the Soviet Union and three successor countries, Belarus, the Russian Federation
and Ukraine. Although these three countries bore the brunt of the impact, given the spread of radiation
outside the borders of the Soviet Union, other countries (in Scandinavia, for instance) sustained
economic losses as well.

The costs of the Chernobyl nuclear accident can only be calculated with a high degree of estimation,
given the non-market conditions prevailing at the time of the disaster and the high inflation and volatile
exchange rates of the transition period that followed the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991.

— Expenditures related to:

Actions to seal off the reactor and mitigate the consequences in the exclusion zone;

Resettlement of people and construction of new housing and infrastructure to accommodate them;

Social protection and health care provided to the affected population;

Research on environment, health and production of clean food;

Radiation monitoring of the environment; and

Radio ecological improvement of settlements and disposal of radioactive waste.

— Indirect losses relating to the opportunity cost of removing agricultural land and forests from use and
the closure of agricultural and industrial facilities; and

— Opportunity costs, including the additional costs of energy resulting from the loss of power from the
Chernobyl and the cancellation of Belarus’s nuclear power programme.

Large sums continue to be paid out in the form of social benefits for as many as 7 million recipients in
the three countries

Coping with the impact of the disaster has placed a huge burden on national budgets. In Ukraine, 5–7
percent of government spending each year is still devoted to Chernobyl-related benefits and
programmes. In Belarus, government spending on Chernobyl amounted to 22.3 percent of the national
budget in 1991, declining gradually to 6.1 percent in 2002. Total spending by Belarus on Chernobyl
between 1991 and 2003 was more than US $ 13 billion.

This massive expenditure has created an unsustainable fiscal burden, particularly for Belarus and
Ukraine. Although capital-intensive spending on resettlement programmes has been curtailed or
concluded, large sums continue to be paid out in the form of social benefits for as many as 7 million
recipients in the three countries. With limited resources, governments thus face the task of streamlining
Chernobyl programmes to provide more focused and targeted assistance, with an eye to helping those
groups that are most at risk from health hazards or socio-economic deprivation.

Source & ©: UN Chernobyl Forum

Chernobyl’s Legacy: Health, Environmental and Socio-economic Impacts (2006)

What was the economic cost of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster?, p.32-34

Level 1: SummaryLevel 2: DetailsLevel 3: Source

5.2 How has the local economy been affected?

The source document for this Digest states:

The affected territories are mostly rural

The agricultural sector was the area of the economy worst hit by the effects of the accident

The affected territories are mostly rural. The main source of income before the accident was agriculture,
both in the form of large collective farms (in the Soviet period), which provided wages and many social
benefits, and small individual plots, which were cultivated for household consumption and local sale.
Industry was mainly fairly unsophisticated, concentrated in food processing or wood products. This
profile has remained largely the same after the accident, though the three countries have taken
different approaches to the legacy of collective farms.

The agricultural sector was the area of the economy worst hit by the effects of the accident. A total of
784 320 hectares of agricultural land was removed from service in the three countries, and timber
production was halted for a total of 694 200 hectares of forest. Restrictions on agricultural production
crippled the market for foodstuffs and other products from the affected areas. "Clean food" production
has remained possible in many areas thanks to remediation efforts, but this has entailed higher costs in
the form of fertilizers, additives and special cultivation processes.

Even where remediation measures have made farming safe, the stigma of Chernobyl has caused some
consumers to reject products from affected areas. Food processing, which had been the mainstay of
industry in much of the region, has been particularly hard-hit by this “branding” issue. Revenues from
agricultural activities have fallen, certain types of production have declined, and some facilities have
closed altogether. In Belarus, where some of the best arable land was removed from production, the
impact on agriculture has affected the whole economy.

Government policies aimed at protecting the population from radiation exposure (both through
resettlement and through limitations on agricultural production) could not help but have a negative
impact on the economy of the affected regions, particularly the rural economy. However, it is crucial to
note that the region also faced great economic turmoil in the 1990s owing to factors completely
unrelated to radiation. The disruption of trade accompanying the collapse of the Soviet Union, the
introduction of market mechanisms, prolonged recessionary trends, and Russia’s rouble crisis of 1998 all
combined to undercut living standards, heighten unemployment and deepen poverty. Agricultural
regions, whether contaminated by radionuclide’s or not, were particularly vulnerable to these threats,
although Chernobyl-affected regions proved particularly susceptible to the drastic changes of the 1990s.

Wages tend to be lower and unemployment higher in the affected areas than they are elsewhere. This is
in part the result of the accident and its aftermath, which forced the closure of many businesses,
imposed limitations on agricultural production, added costs to product manufacture (particularly the
need for constant dissymmetric monitoring), and hurt marketing efforts. But equally important is the
fact that farm workers in all three countries are among the lowest-paid categories of employees.
Employment options outside of agriculture are also limited in Chernobyl-affected regions, but, again, the
causes are as much a consequence of generic factors as of Chernobyl specifics. The proportion of small
and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) is far lower in the affected regions than elsewhere. This is partly
because many skilled and educated workers, especially the younger ones, have left the region, and
partly because — in all three countries — the general business environment discourages
entrepreneurship. Private investment is also low, in part owing to image problems, in part to
unfavorable conditions for business nationwide.

The result of these trends is that the affected regions face a higher risk of poverty than elsewhere. In
seeking solutions to the region’s economic malaise, it is important to address the generic issues
(improving the business climate, encouraging the development of SMEs and the creation of jobs outside
agriculture, and eliminating the barriers to profitable land use and efficient agricultural production) as
well as addressing the issues of radioactive contact.

The source document for this Digest states:

330 000 people have been relocated away from the more affected areas

Since the Chernobyl accident, more than 330 000 people have been relocated away from the more
affected areas. 116 000 of them were evacuated immediately after the accident, whereas a larger
number were resettled several years later, when the benefits of relocation were less evident.

Although resettlement reduced the population’s radiation doses, it was for many a deeply traumatic
experience. Even when resettlers were compensated for their losses, offered free houses and given a
choice of resettlement location, many retained a deep sense of injustice about the process. Many are
unemployed and believe they are without a place in society and have little control over their own lives.
Some older resettlers may never adjust.

Opinion polls suggest that many resettlers wished to return to their native villages. Paradoxically, people
who remained in their villages (and even more so the “ self-settlers,” those who were evacuated and
then returned to their homes despite restrictions) have coped better psychologically with the accident’s
aftermath than have those who were resettled to less affected areas.
Communities in the affected areas suffer from a highly distorted demographic structure. As a result of
resettlement and voluntary migration, the percentage of elderly individuals in affected areas is
abnormally high. In some districts, the population of pensioners equals or already exceeds the working-
age population. In fact, the more contaminated a region, the older its population. A large proportion of
skilled, educated and entrepreneurial people have also left the region, hampering the chances for
economic recovery and raising the risk of poverty.

The departure of young people has also had psychological effects. An aging population naturally means
that the number of deaths exceeds the number of births, yet this fact has encouraged the belief that the
areas concerned were dangerous places to live.

5.3.2 What has been the main impact on individuals?

The source document for this Digest states:

Psychological distress arising from the accident and its aftermath has had a profound impact on
individual and community behaviour

Anxiety over the effects of radiation on health shows no sign of diminishing

The affected populations exhibit a widespread belief that exposed people are in some way condemned
to a shorter life expectancy

it is crucial to note that adult mortality has been rising alarmingly across the former Soviet Union for
several decades

As noted in the Chernobyl Forum report on Health, “the mental health impact of Chernobyl is the largest
public health problem unleashed by the accident to date.” Psychological distress arising from the
accident and its aftermath has had a profound impact on individual and community behaviour.
Populations in the affected areas exhibit strongly negative attitudes in self-assessments of health and
wellbeing and a strong sense of lack of control over their own lives. Associated with these perceptions is
an exaggerated sense of the dangers to health of exposure to radiation. The affected populations exhibit
a widespread belief that exposed people are in some way condemned to a shorter life expectancy. Such
fatalism is also linked to a loss of initiative to solve the problems of sustaining an income and to
dependency on assistance from the state.
Anxiety over the effects of radiation on health shows no sign of diminishing. Indeed, it may even be
spreading beyond the affected areas into a wide section of the population. Parents may be transferring
their anxiety to their children through example and excessively protective care.

Yet while attributing a wide variety of medical complaints to Chernobyl, many residents of the affected
areas neglect the role of personal behaviour in maintaining health. This applies not only to radiation
risks such as the consumption of mushrooms and berries from contaminated forests, but also to areas
where individual behaviour is decisive, such as misuse of alcohol and tobacco.

In this context, it is crucial to note that adult mortality has been rising alarmingly across the former
Soviet Union for several decades. Life expectancy has declined precipitously, particularly for men, and in
the Russian Federation stood at an average of 65 in 2003 (just 59 years for men). The main causes of
death in the Chernobyl-affected region are the same as those nationwide cardiovascular diseases,
injuries and poisonings — rather than any radiation-related illnesses. The most pressing health concerns
for the affected areas thus lie in poor diet and lifestyle factors such as alcohol and tobacco use, as well
as poverty and limited access to health care. These threats may be even more acute in Chernobyl-
affected areas, owing to the impact of low incomes on diet, the high share of socially deprived families,
and shortages of trained medical staff.

Added to exaggerated or misplaced health fears, a sense of victimization and dependency created by
government social protection policies is widespread in the affected areas. The extensive system of
Chernobyl-related benefits (see below) has created expectations of long term direct financial support
and entitlement to privileges, and has undermined the capacity of the individuals and communities
concerned to tackle their own economic and social problems. The dependency culture that has
developed over the past two decades is a major barrier to the region’s recovery. These factors
underscore the importance of measures aimed at giving the individuals and communities concerned
control over their own futures — an approach that is both more efficient in use of scarce resources and
crucial to mitigating the accident’s psychological and social impact.

The Soviet Union undertook far-reaching measures in response to the Chernobyl nuclear accident. The
government adopted a very low threshold with regard to the level of radioactive contamination that was
considered acceptable for inhabited areas. The same caution applied to the zoning principles that were
defined by the Soviet government in the wake of the accident, and that were subsequently reinforced
by national legislation after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. These principles determined
where people were permitted to live and imposed limitations on the types of activities that might be
pursued (including farming and infrastructure investment). The zones were created based on very
cautious standards for radiation risk and using measurements made very soon after the accident
occurred.

In the wake of the accident, rehabilitation actions were undertaken on a huge scale (see Table). To
accommodate the resettled populations, large investments were made in the construction of housing,
schools, and hospitals, and also in physical infrastructure such as roads, water and electricity supply and
sewerage. Because of the risk that was believed to be involved in burning locally produced wood and
peat, many villages were provided with access to gas supplies for heating and cooking. This involved
laying down a total of 8,980 kilometres of gas pipeline in the three countries in the fifteen years
following the accident. Large sums were also spent to develop methods to cultivate “clean food” in the
less contaminated areas where farming was allowed.

By the late 1990s, Belarusian and Russian legislation provided more than seventy, and Ukrainian
legislation more than fifty, different privileges and benefits for Chernobyl victims, depending on factors
such as the degree of invalidity and the level of contamination. The system also guaranteed allowances,
some of which were paid in cash, while others took the form of, for example, free meals for
schoolchildren. In addition, the authorities undertook to finance health holidays in sanatoria and
summer camps for invalids, liquidators, people who continued to live in highly affected areas, children
and adolescents. In Belarus, almost 500 000 people, including 400 000 children, had the right to free
holidays in the early 2000s. In Ukraine, the government funded 400 000–5 00 000 health holiday months
per year between 1994 and 2000.

These government efforts were successful in protecting the overwhelming majority of the population
from unacceptably high doses of radiation. They also stimulated the development of agricultural and
food-processing techniques that reduced the radionuclide level in food. In the absence of alternative
sources of income, government-provided Chernobyl benefits became the key to survival for many
whose livelihoods were wiped out by the accident. And the health care system detected and treated
thousands of cases of thyroid cancer that developed among children who were exposed to radioactive
iodine in the weeks following the accident.

Second, the massive investment programmes initiated to serve resettlement communities proved
unsustainable, particularly under market economic conditions. Funding for Chernobyl programmes has
declined steadily over time, leaving many projects half completed and thousands of half-built houses
and public facilities standing abandoned in resettlement villages.

Third, the Soviet government delayed any public announcement that the accident had occurred.
Information provision was selective and restrictive, particularly in the immediate aftermath of the
accident. This approach left a legacy of mistrust surrounding official statements on radiation, and this
has hindered efforts to provide reliable information to the public in the following decades.

Fourth, wide applicability meant that Chernobyl benefits mushroomed into an unsustainable fiscal
burden. Somewhat counter-intuitively, the number of people claiming Chernobyl-related benefits
soared over time, rather than declining. As the economic crisis of the 1990s deepened, registration as a
victim of Chernobyl became for many the only means to an income and to vital aspects of health
provision, including medicines. According to Ukrainian figures, the number of people designated as
permanently disabled by the Chernobyl accident (and their children) increased from 200 in 1991 to 64
500 in 1997 and 91 219 in 2001.

Despite this constraint, some changes to Chernobyl legislation have already been made to improve
policy efficiency. In Belarus, for example, individual benefits are no longer paid to the least-affected
categories of the population, and the meagre sums paid out as compensation to individual families living
in the contaminated areas are now accumulated at the regional level and used by local authorities to
improve medical and communal services for the affected population.

The enormous scale of the effort currently being made by the three governments means that even small
improvements in efficiency can significantly increase the resources available for those in need.
Governments realize that the costs and benefits of particular interventions need to be assessed more
rigorously, and resources targeted more carefully to those facing true need. Resources now committed
to Chernobyl health care benefits should be targeted to high-risk groups (e.g., liquidators) and those
with demonstrated health conditions, or be shifted into a mainstream health care system that promotes
preventive medicine and improved primary care. Similarly, Chernobyl benefits that in practice meet
socio-economic needs should be folded into a nationwide means-tested social protection program that
targets the truly needy. Such changes take political courage, as reallocating resources faces strong
resistance from vested interests.

How The Soviet Government Responded in Tackling Chernobyl Power Plant

The Soviet government also cut down and buried about a square mile of pine forest near the plant to
reduce radioactive contamination at and near the site. Chernobyl's three other reactors were
subsequently restarted but all eventually shut down for good, with the last reactor closing in December

The Comprehensive Overview of the Chernobyl Disaster

The Chernobyl accident in 1986 was the result of a flawed reactor design that was operated with
inadequately trained personnel. The resulting steam explosion and fires released at least 5% of the
radioactive reactor core into the environment, with the deposition of radioactive materials in many
parts of Europe.

The Long-term Efforts to Mitigate the Chernobyl Disaster

It was designed with the primary goal of confining the radioactive remains of reactor 4 for the next 100
years. It also aims to allow for a partial demolition of the original sarcophagus, which was hastily
constructed by Chernobyl liquidators after a beyond design-basis accident destroyed the reactor.

Steps Taken to Prevent Chernobyl Disaster from Occurring in The Future

Between May and November 1986, a Shelter was built to contain the damaged reactor, reduce the
radiation levels on-site, and prevent further release of radioactive material.

Conclusion

The Chernobyl incident can not be directly proven to have caused the fall of the Soviet Union; however,
it is possible to argue that some of the consequences of the accident could have started or been part of
the domino effect that eventually led to the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Before the event, Soviet
citizens had a trust in the system that did not exist to the same degree after the disaster. The Chernobyl
event likely amplified the lack of transparency in the Soviet government and also showed that the
government did not have the ability to fully protect citizens with the apparent health issues in the
aftermath. Many other flaws arose from the incident in terms of health, ecological, and other general
operating responses of the government.