30 YEARS AFTER CHERNOBYL DISASTER

Thirty years after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, new measures are taken to secure the area. A new protective covering – an arch which will be 120 metres high and 280 metres wide – will be placed over the damaged reactor, creating a leak-tight barrier designed to contain radioactive remains of unit 4 for the next 100 years. The facility is expected to replace the present sarcophagus which was constructed as an emergency measure to contain the radioactive materials within reactor unit 4 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

Almost 9 tonnes of radioactive materials were released as a result of the explosion in the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine in 1986, or 90 times more than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in World War II.

The true scale of the accident's consequences are still being assessed. The number of people killed by it remains disputed.

The accident occurred during a systems test on 26th April 1986 at reactor 4 of the plant. The test was prepared to determine how long turbines would spin and supply power to the main circulating pumps following a loss of main electrical power supply.

A series of operator actions, including the disabling of automatic shutdown mechanisms, preceded the attempted test early on 26 April. At 01:23, reactor 4 suffered a catastrophic power increase, leading to explosions in its core. This dispersed large quantities of radioactive materials into the atmosphere for more than a week.

On 27^th of April, the 45,000 residents of the plant operators' town of Pripyat were evacuated. By end of May, some 116,000 people that had been living within a 30-kilometre radius had been evacuated. Most did not know the reason they had to leave their homes.

The Soviet government condemned the local authorities for not providing information immediately after the accident.

On 28th of April, several hours before the official announcement of TASS, a radioactive cloud quickly spread over Scandinavia and North Europe.

Swedish scientists were the first to set the alarm off. After a check in their nuclear power plant, they found an increased level of radiation.

At the time, there was uncertainty throughout Europe as to the scale of the accident. On 14^th of May, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev for the first time spoke publicly on national television about the size of the nuclear accident. Drastic measures were taken such as ban on import of foods from the Soviet Union.

The fire in the reactor continued for 10 days. It was extinguished by a combined effort of several thousand people, military helicopters and totally about 600 000 liquidators from the whole Soviet union. Some of these people are still alive, but not in good health. On14th of January 1987, Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, Andrei Gromyko, presented state awards to the liquidators of the Chernobyl accident.

According to official data, two plant workers died on the night of the explosion, further 28 people died later in hospital and 237 were diagnosed with radiation poisoning.

The Chernobyl disaster was considered the worst nuclear power plant accident in history in terms of cost and casualties and is one of the two classified as a level 7 event (the maximum classification) on the International Nuclear Event Scale, the other being the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan in 2011.

It may appear bizarre, but Chernobyl is now a tourist attraction and enjoys many visitors.

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