In the accident, two of the station’s workers died on the spot, and in the following four months, 28 of the firefighters who rushed to the site of the disaster to deal with the fire and the radioactivity that was released died from the radiation. Another 19 people from the rescue crews who were there in the first dramatic days lost their lives by 2004.
The World Health Organization has estimated that the total radiation released was 200 times greater than that of the atomic bombs dropped in 1945 on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
About 350,000 people were evacuated from their homes due to radiation contamination, while about 9,500 people remained in mandatory evacuation zones.
Official investigations estimate that the fatal cancers linked to the nuclear accident reach 9000. Dealing with the release of radioactivity into the atmosphere required the construction of a concrete sarcophagus, which would “seal” the damaged facility.
The project was completed in record time, in 1986, but only six years later scientists found that it had already developed cracks.
The fear of its collapse led the Ukrainian government and the international community to the decision to build a new sarcophagus.
In 2007, a joint venture of the French companies “Bouygues” and “Vinci” won the relevant tender.
At 105 meters high, 150 meters long and 260 meters wide, the new airtight sarcophagus and a new nuclear waste storage area would cost €1.5 billion. The necessary funds were secured by donor states and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).
The project markedly began on April 26, 2012, 26 years after the disaster.
Chernobyl disaster: the dates of the largest nuclear accident in history
The Chernobyl disaster caused, according to estimates, the death of thousands of people and contaminated up to three quarters of the area of Europe.
01.23. Reactor explosion
April 26, 1986: At 01.23 the atomic heart of reactor no. 4 of the Soviet Chernobyl nuclear power plant ignites during a safety test following a mishandling and an explosion ensues that blows up the entire building. Radioactive plume is released into the atmosphere.
The first firefighters who arrive at the scene of the disaster receive massive doses of radioactive radiation. Among the staff members and rescue crews, two died on the spot and 28 in the weeks that followed.
The nuclear fuel will continue to burn for ten days. Thousands of tons of sand, clay and lead dropped from helicopters will be needed to contain the spills.
The smog is polluting Europe
In the days that follow, radioactive smog heavily contaminates Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia. Reaching over the Nordic countries it will then reach central Europe, the Balkans, Italy, France, Britain and Ireland.
The evacuation of Pripyat, a town of 48,000 residents located three kilometers from the nuclear power plant, will not be ordered until 24 and a half hours after the explosion. Traditional open-air May Day celebrations will be held as usual in Kyiv, which is located just 100 kilometers from the Chernobyl station. In 1986, more than 110,000 people had to be evacuated from a 30 km perimeter around the station, an area that remains an exclusion zone today.
The first public alert means on April 28 from Sweden, which detects an increase in the levels of radioactivity on its territory. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) receives formal notification of the Soviet authorities on 30 April. But the leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, will not publicly admit it until May 14.
The three other reactors at the Chernobyl plant will continue to produce nuclear power until December 2000.
Sarcophagus in the reactor
November 1986: A 50 meter high concrete sarcophagus is being installed to cover reactor no. 4 and isolate the 200 tons of radioactive magma it contains. Its lifespan was originally estimated at the time at 20 to 30 years and in 1993 at seven years.
Between 1986 and 1990, some 600,000 Soviets, called “de-skinners” would work at the crash site, equipped with little or no personal protective equipment, to construct the concrete cover and clean up the site.
October 1991: Reactor no. 2 is shut down after a fire.
Closing the station
April 1995: Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma is committed to closing Chernobyl before 2000. The European Union and Group of 7 pledge $2.3 billion in aid in December.
November 1996: Kyiv shuts down reactor no. 1.
September 1998: As the as-built sarcophagus threatens to collapse, work to strengthen the walls begins, to last about 10 years at a cost of $760 million.
December 2000: under Western pressure, the last operating reactor shuts down, putting an end to the operation of the Chernobyl plant.
Conflicting accounts
September 2005: A UN report estimates that 4,000 people have died or will die in the three most affected countries. A year later, a Greenpeace estimate puts that number at 100,000
For their part, the Ukrainian authorities announced in 1998 about 12,500 deaths among the peelers.
New cover
August 2010: After years of setbacks, work begins, by the French consortium Novarka, on the construction of a new dome, 108 meters high. Assembly begins in April 2012. The work is estimated to cost 2.1 billion euros. The funds come from the international community and are managed by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (BERD).
November 2016: The giant steel dome weighing 36,000 tons is placed over the sarcophagus. It will have a lifespan of 100 years and will allow the decontamination of the interior of the damaged reactor to be carried out under safe conditions.
“Black tourism” in the region and the television series that took it off the air
Tourists began to show a special interest in Chernobyl, resulting in the rise of “black (or dark) tourism” (a neologism coined in 1996 by Glasgow Caledonian University and defined as any visiting areas traditionally associated with death and tragedy).
Many publications of the time attributed the intense interest recorded at that time to a video game, STALKER, arguing that its users wanted to see up close an otherworldly setting like that of the ghost town of Pripyat. What took off tourist interest in the area, however, was HBO’s Chernobyl television series, which broke all records as it came in at number one on IMDb’s all-time TV rankings, garnering rave reviews from the press. Interest in a visit to Pripyat, where time has stopped on the day of the nuclear accident, has increased by 30-40%.
It is typical that the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, during his visit to Chernobyl last June, just one month after his inauguration, had spoken about the need to give “new life” to the region and in July of the same year he signed a decree on a Chernobyl Development Strategy.
However, the recent fire around the perimeter of the inactive Chernobyl nuclear power plant has destroyed some of the “points of interest” of the tourist tour in the wider area, as the director of the largest company in the sector “Chernobyl Tour” said, although, as he clarified, the the nuclear plant itself and the city of Pripyat were not affected.
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