Chernobyl Nuclear Reactor Disaster
On April 26, 1986, Reactor #4 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant near the town of Pripyat, Ukraine, exploded. The explosion took place at 1:23am while the neighboring town of Pripyat slept. Two workers were killed instantly. 40 hours later, the residents of Pripyat were ordered to evacuate, and most never returned; by that time, many of the residents had suffered varying degrees of radiation poisoning.
In 2003, the United Nations Development Programme launched a project called the Chernobyl Recovery and Development Programme (CRDP) for the recovery of the affected areas. The program launched its activities based on the Human Consequences of the Chernobyl Nuclear Accident report recommendations and was initiated in February 2002. The main goal of the CRDP's activities is supporting the Government of Ukraine to mitigate long-term social, economic and ecological consequences of the Chernobyl catastrophe, among others. CRDP works in the four most Chernobyl-affected areas in Ukraine: Kiev Oblast, Zhytomyrska Oblast, partially Kiev, Chernihivska Oblast and Rivne Oblast.
Read more about this topic: Chernobyl (city)
Famous quotes containing the words nuclear and/or disaster:
“Language is as real, as tangible, in our lives as streets, pipelines, telephone switchboards, microwaves, radioactivity, cloning laboratories, nuclear power stations.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“When disaster waves, I try not to wave back.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)