25 Years ago Chernobyl was headline news. On April 26th 1986 at 1:23 A.M. reactor number four at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, near the town of Pripyat, ruptured a vessel during several extreme power spikes. Several explosions followed and these caused the graphite moderator components of the reactor to be exposed to air, setting them on fire. The fire sent a plume of radioactive fallout into the atmosphere. It drifted over large parts of the Sovjet Union and Western Europe.
50 People died as a direct result of the disaster and it is thought up to 4000 people have died as a result of being exposed to the radioactive materials which entered the atmosphere. Over 350.000 were evacuated from contaminated areas around Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.In 2011, 25 years later, the area surrounding Chernobyl still looks like a ghost town.
Pripyat, after the Nuclear Accident in Chernobyl, Ukraine.
Pripyat, Chernobyl
Older children went to school the morning after the explosion. Most of them knew there had been an accident at the plant, but had no idea that radiation levels were dangerous.
(Chernobyl was evacuated 36 hours after the meltdown.)
