Ecological aspects of the chernobyl nuclear plant disaster

Abstract

The partial meltdown of the 1000MW reactor in Chernobyl and the massive release of radionuclides into the environment is the first large-scale contamination of a geographically significant area by a power-generating civilian nuclear plant. It will have a long term effect on the human population, agriculture and the environment. Previous cases of accidental contamination of the environment on such a scale were connected with the disposal of reprocessed nuclear waste or the release of radioactivity from atmospheric and underground tests of nuclear weapons. One such contamination, which provides important lessons in the wake of the Chernobyl disaster, was linked with the explosion of the nuclear waste storage facility near Kyshtym in the Cheliabinsk region of the Soviet Union in 1958. It resulted in the creation of a special ‘exclusion zone’, resettlement of local populations and special construction projects designed to prevent the distribution of radioactivity over even larger areas.