Thirty years ago exploded Chernobyl nuclear power plant and its consequences even extend – rionegro.com.ar

KIEV / Chernobyl 30 years ago, at 1:23 of April 26, 1986, an experiment in the Soviet Chernobyl nuclear power plant was out of control. The reactor number four exploded. He had begun the worst accident in the history of civilian use of nuclear energy.

A similar catastrophe occurred only 25 years later, when the core of Japan’s Fukushima melted. The two disasters, Chernobyl and Fukushima, changed the international debate on nuclear energy, especially in Germany, which in 2011 set a goal of total abandonment of this energy source.

However, the Chernobyl disaster also marked the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union, a country which until then was considered stable.

The reactor core was destroyed and the building of the station was severely damaged. The explosions emitted into the atmosphere an extremely large amount of radioactivity.

For several days, the Soviet leadership, headed by President Mikhail Gorbachev, hid what happened. However, more than 100,000 people had to be relocated and for years to almost 600,000 citizens throughout the Soviet Union were forced to assist in the cleanup. Until today, many of them suffer the consequences of radioactive contamination.

Not only northern Ukraine, where the accident occurred, was contaminated with radioactivity. The radioactive cloud mainly affected neighboring Belarus and western Russia, to move later to Scandinavia and Western Europe.

Following the explosion about 30 nuclear plant workers and firefighters killed in the fighting and rescue work. But until today not exactly how many people died from the Chernobyl disaster is known. Experts believe that tens of thousands of deaths are a result of the accident.

30 years of the disaster, almost no one even talks about Chernobyl in Ukraine, now an independent country. More than 210,000 “liquidators” back to talk about himself especially when it comes to defending their disability benefits and some special aids.

However, attention in Ukraine is more focused on the war in the east of the country and the annexation of the Crimea by neighboring Russia, in March 2014. As a result of the conflict in the mining region of Donbas, no shortage of coal, so the share of nuclear energy in electricity production has increased to more than 50 percent. Again and again they announced plans to build new reactors.

Still, the first trip of the new Minister of Environment of Ukraine, Ostap Semerak, had passed as destination the “death zone” located around the destroyed reactor week. The minister inspected the new steel roof, which during the next 100 years should prevent water in the remains of the reactor and out dust into the atmosphere.

As a result of Chernobyl, Italy halted its nuclear plants in 1987 and Poland in 1989 suspended the introduction of nuclear energy in the country. Switzerland announced its intention to disconnect the reactors by the year 2034.

Other countries such as France, the United Kingdom, Russia and the United States do not want to abandon nuclear energy. In India already operate many reactors, and China intends to develop large-scale nuclear power. And despite Fukushima, Japan does not want to definitely say goodbye to this energy source. (DPA)