On April 26, 1986, at 1:24 a.m., a terrible accident occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in northwestern Ukraine. The Chernobyl disaster was the worst nuclear accident since the world began using nuclear energy. Some argue that this is the most severe ecological disaster of the 20th century. The disaster was rated 7th, the most severe on the International Atomic and Radiological Event of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The nuclear reactor was built near the city of Pripyat, about 18 km from the city of Chernobyl and about 110 km from Kiev. Residents within a 30-kilometer radius of the reactor were evacuated, while some 600,000 people (called liquidators) were employed, mostly under duress or military service, in cleaning and evacuating radiation-infected areas, many without adequate protection. 54 people were killed as a direct result of the disaster. In the years after the disaster, an increase in cancer (mainly thyroid cancer) and other diseases caused by radiation damage was observed among residents of the disaster area. However, regarding the mortality rate that can be directly linked to radiation damage, opinions Divisions, and estimates range from about 4,000 to 93,000 people.To this day, many areas remain infected with radioactive radiation and the city of Pripyat is banned from entry.
The disaster came as a result of a combination of a well-known design failure of the 'AZ-5' reactor shutdown mechanism that was reportedly shelved and negligence during a failed experiment that created an abnormal rise in the reactor core temperature that caused melting and rupture of its protective shell. The radioactive cloud created by the massive explosion was composed mainly of stimulating nuclei of iodine and cesium atoms and spread throughout almost all of Europe.
The disaster raised the environmental cost of using nuclear energy and the control of such reactors. In accordance with the United Nations resolution, April 26 has now been declared to mark the Chernobyl disaster.
April 26 is also Richter Scale Day