Welcome to Sunny Chernobyl
Stuck as we are in the tense middle of the ongoing disaster at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, many people's thoughts turn to the Chernobyl disaster. How does it compare, and what were the long-term effects?
In 1986 the nuclear reactor in the Ukranian town of Chernobyl went red. This plant had no containment shell, and when it blew, it poured a plume of radioactive fallout into the air above the nearby town of Pripyat. The plume followed easterly winds and over the next week it settled over the Soviet Union, moving slowly eastward to Europe.
In 1986 the nuclear reactor in the Ukranian town of Chernobyl went red. This plant had no containment shell, and when it blew, it poured a plume of radioactive fallout into the air above the nearby town of Pripyat. The plume followed easterly winds and over the next week it settled over the Soviet Union, moving slowly eastward to Europe.
The official Ukranian government death toll stands at about 50, the number of workers who were killed directly by the explosion. But the number of people who died as a result of the long-term effects of contamination may number up to a million.
