Forgetting Chernobyl

It has been 30 years since Chernobyl was famous as a nuclear power plant, so a new generation has forgotten what it was, or where.  In yesterday's Financial Times is a widely reported story of a 36,000-ton "safety shield" to be put on top of the site, a human engineering feat that will not go unnoticed, since these stories say it will dramatically cut the amount of radiation being leaked into the atmosphere.  Of course, that means there was a considerable amount still leaking for that whole 30 years.  We had forgotten about that too.  Former President Gorbachev said that the Chernobyl accident was a more important factor in the fall of the Soviet Union than Perestroika.  

RT reports that for the more adventureous of people, there are tours of the city, though there will not be many people there to look at.  Animals and humans still do not live very close to this radioactive site.  An area of 30,000 Kilometers around the site was evacuated and over 116,000 people did not come back to their homes.  You can Google Map it at Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.  

It is odd that RT mentions it because Chernobyl was under Russian control when it dissolved into a molten mess.  The World Nuclear Association is clear that it was a faulty Russian design operated by less than competent people, that caused it to melt down.  The fact that it is under Ukraine's control now hardly passes our notice.

This radioactive area is about 500 miles south-west of Moscow.  The Russians can run tours there all they want but it is not a tourist area that very many people will want to go to.  Radiation exposure, according to my training, is cumulative- it never goes away and builds up each time you are exposed. That is a good reason to forget about Chernobyl.