20 Years Later

Twenty years ago, on 26th April 1986, reactor number four at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Pripyat, Ukraine, which was then part of the Soviet Union exploded. Even today there is still not a consensus on the full impact of the disaster. This was the BBC headline on Monday April 28, 1986: “Soviets admit nuclear accident”.

From that 1986 BBC article:

“The report was the first confirmation of a major nuclear catastrophe since monitoring stations in Sweden, Finland and Norway began reporting sudden high discharges of radioactivity in the atmosphere two days ago”...

“The sudden jump in radioactivity levels was enough to prompt a full-scale alert in Sweden, which initially believed the accident had happened at its own nuclear power station, on the Baltic coast. The evacuation of 600 workers had been ordered before experts realised that the source of the radioactivity must have been within the Soviet Union”...

2 days after the accident, the Soviets refused to admit something unordinary had occurred until that night when Swedish diplomats gave notice that they were filing an official alert to the International Atomic Energy Authority, Moscow finally issued this statement:

“An accident has occurred at Chernobyl nuclear power station. One of the atomic reactors has been damaged. Measures are being taken to eliminate the consequences of the accident. Aid is being given to the victims. A government commission has been set up”.

Today we commemorate the world’s greatest nuclear accident.
Source: BBC