Not only did the government welcome international assistance in treating victims of the accident, but the media was unleashed and began to engage in investigative reports about environmental degradation and accidents elsewhere in the Soviet Union.įinally, and notwithstanding changes in official policy, the accident fueled resentment in both Ukraine and Belorussia against the central authorities. The Chernobyl disaster marked a watershed in the government’s commitment to glasnost ‘, which until then had been little more than a slogan. Another consequence was the Gorbachev administration’s reassessment of its information policy. The cost of the clean-up, including the provision of housing and other resources for evacuees, eventually ran into billions of rubles, burdening an already shaky economy. One of the consequences of the accident was economic. By the time Gorbachev went on television almost three weeks later to report on the accident, his credibility had suffered a severe blow. Among them were workers - many of them volunteers - who were rushed to the scene to shut down the reactor and build a concrete sarcophagus around it. Thirty-eight people were killed instantly as a result of the accident, and it has been claimed - though not confirmed - that as many as 100,000 subsequently died or suffered severe harms to their health from radiation. Authorities evacuated some forty thousand people from the town of Pripyat closest to the accident. In the meantime, wild rumors were circulating throughout the region of the blast producing panic. Even while the Kremlin maintained a cautious silence, refusing to release any information about the blast, monitoring devices in Sweden were picking up significant traces of radioactivity. Radioactive dust spewed into the air and was carried by prevailing winds over nearby Belorussia. 4 reactor in northern Ukraine triggered a massive explosion that became the world’s worst nuclear accident. On April 26, 1986, a surge of power at the Chernobyl nuclear power station’s no.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |