Scoop
On April 26, 1986, Ukraine marked the sad 30th anniversary of the Chornobyl nuclear disaster.
The Chernobyl disaster was a catastrophic nuclear accident that occurred on 26 April 1986 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the city of Pripyat, then located in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic of the Soviet Union (USSR). An explosion and fire released large quantities of radioactive particles into the atmosphere, which spread over much of the western USSR and Europe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernob…
Moscow tried to hide the disaster for 2 days before finally admitting the accident. Evacuation began long before the accident was publicly known throughout the Union. Only on 28 April, after radiation levels set off alarms at the Forsmark Nuclear Power Plant in Sweden, over 1,000 kilometres (620 mi) from the Chernobyl Plant, did the Soviet Union publicly admit that an accident had occurred. At 21:02 that evening a 20-second announcement was read in the TV news program Vremya:
There has been an accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. One of the nuclear reactors was damaged. The effects of the accident are being remedied. Assistance has been provided for any affected people. An investigative commission has been set up.
— Vremya, 28 April 1986 (21:00)
This was the entirety of the announcement of the accident.
The nearby city of Pripyat was not immediately evacuated. The townspeople went about their usual business, completely oblivious to what had just happened. By 11:00 on 27 April, buses had arrived in Pripyat to start the evacuation.
Thirty-one deaths are directly attributed to the accident, all among the reactor staff and emergency workers. An UNSCEAR report places the total confirmed deaths from radiation at 64 as of 2008. The Chernobyl Forum predicts the eventual death toll could reach 4,000 among those exposed to the highest levels of radiation (200,000 emergency workers, 116,000 evacuees and 270,000 residents of the most contaminated areas).
The soundtrack is “Ethnicolor 1” by Jean Michel Jarre.
