Remembering the Chernobyl nuclear disaster

Twenty nine years ago today, the world's worst nuclear disaster at the time, happened in Ukraine close to the border with Belarus in what was still the Soviet Union. The Chernobyl reactor, just two years into operation, exploded, releasing large quantities of radioactive particles into the atmosphere. The effects are still felt today. A detailed account of the impacts of Chernobyl can be found in this excellent 2011 report by IPPNW -- Health Effects of Chernobyl 25 Years After the Reactor Catastrophe. Today, Strontium 90 levels in potatoes in Gomel, Belarus, are still as high as in 1990, an anomaly that is yet to be fully explained given the isotope's half-life. Strontium 90 has in fact so weakened human immune systems, especially in children, that the effect is now known as "Chernobyl AIDS." Cesium, with a half-life of 30 years, has been equally devastating. At least 80% of the Chernobyl fallout was cesium 137 which stays in biological chain for 300+ years. More