The exclusion zone covered an area of about 1,017 square miles (2,634 square km) around the plant. Take an excursion to the Chernobyl disaster site See all videos for this articleįollowing the disaster, the Soviet Union created a circle-shaped exclusion zone with a radius of about 18.6 miles (30 km) centred on the nuclear power plant. Chernobyl Unit 3 continued to operate until 2000, when the nuclear power station was officially decommissioned. Chernobyl Unit 2 was shut down after a 1991 fire, and Unit 1 remained on-line until 1996. 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. 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. 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. This radioactivity was spread by the wind over Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine and soon reached as far west as France and Italy. 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. Dozens more people contracted serious radiation sickness some of them later died. Some sources state that two people were killed in the initial explosions, whereas others report that the figure was closer to 50. Monument to emergency workers who responded to Chernobyl disaster SpaceNext50 Britannica presents SpaceNext50, From the race to the Moon to space stewardship, we explore a wide range of subjects that feed our curiosity about space!.Learn about the major environmental problems facing our planet and what can be done about them! Saving Earth Britannica Presents Earth’s To-Do List for the 21st Century.Britannica Beyond We’ve created a new place where questions are at the center of learning.100 Women Britannica celebrates the centennial of the Nineteenth Amendment, highlighting suffragists and history-making politicians.
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