Chernobyl 40 years later: what do you know about it and what do you think we have learned?

[Tarifa]

In the early hours of 26 April 1986, what should have been a routine test at Chernobyl nuclear power plant, quickly escalated into the world’s biggest nuclear accident. A combination of fatal flaws in the reactor’s design and human error led to a catastrophic explosion. Radiation spread over vast areas of Europe.

The true number of victims of this disaster will never be known, but around 350,000 people were displaced in the years that followed, while some 600,000 men put their lives at risk to participate in the containment operations.

[sage2021]

I remember when that happened and saw the deviation on TV of the aftermath right after it took place.

I remember thinking that now all of that radiation and whatever else was released is going to really pollute the air that those people breathe and they had no where to go to get away from it.

I was younger back then and believed that somehow it would pollute America. 🇺🇸 Who knows? Maybe it did.

It was just so devastating to those people who had to deal with it. I honestly don't know how it effected their health in the long run for those who were effected by what happened.

The sad part is that if people had been more careful and not stupid - it would have never happened!

Very sad!

[Tarifa]

I remember it well. I was still young, but the nuclear 'cloud' flew over the best part of Europe. The uncertainty of what was really happening was the worst part.

[sage2021]

**Devastation NOT deviation** correction

[sage2021]

Thank you for the MHO 🙂🧡

[purplepoppy]

Farmers still need to test there crops for radiation in the UK. Rainfall was mapped at the time and if it past over your land your produce needs testing before you can sell it

[beefcakebradybatson]

It was the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union, as the secretive "press" which had been hiding Chernobyl's dangers for years couldn't conceal the horrors of casualties of the explosion whose released radiation displaced hundreds of thousands throughout the USSR and the rest of Europe. Chernobyl taught the world the necessity of a free press, and the dangers of trying to keep the citizenry in the dark about potentially fatal governmental actions.

[DryGermanGuy]

I remember it well, the pictures we saw on television were horrific. A neighbor bought a Geigercounter, to check the local fruit and vegetables. Everybody could see how dangerous nuclear energy is, but until Fukushima, people thought the worst case could only happen in rotten systems like the USSR.

[Tarifa]

And it took the Russian government 18 days to admit the severity of the problem. That's probably the worst, trying to minimize something that had gone out of hand.

I was young at the time, but I remember the warnings on radio and television about the nuclear cloud over most European countries. We were advised to stay indoors for a few days.

[lightbulb27]

yes. have a nuclear plant north and south and west of me. they are all over the place and we will have more.

we haven't built a reactor in usa in a long long time.

I heard some plants and animal were surviving in the area.

[exitseven]

I mostly remember the movie The China Syndrome and the Saturday Night Live skit that they did called the Pepsi syndrome. That was when the term Meltdown was first used.

[emeraldsaphire]

I think we've learned to never let commies go nuclear, they just don't know how to do it safely

[Maybe_Maybe_not]

You're safe, communist dictatorships are dead, except North-Korea, you are even born in times where they were already a thing from the past...

[Sunrising]

We've obviously learned to be more careful, because there have been no further nuclear disasters that we know about, but could we now be becoming complacent.

[Tarifa]

Well, there was one in Japan in 2011, as a direct result of an earthquake and tsunami. It resulted in electrical grid failure and damaged nearly all of the power plant's backup energy sources. The subsequent inability to sufficiently cool reactors after shutdown compromised containment and resulted in the release of radioactive contaminants into the surrounding environment.

It is regarded as the worst nuclear incident since the Chernobyl disaster.

[Anonymous]

Unfortunately much of what I think I know comes from the movie Chernobyl which I doubt is terribly accurate. Little before my time though.

[Abbycado]

I’ve watched the show and that’s about it. How historically accurate it is, I don’t know.

[Tarifa]

A movie will be broadcast this afternoon on Spanish TV, but I will only be able to see it some time this week. There are loads of documentaries on YouTube and other channels.

[Abbycado]

I watched the docu series on Netflix.

[Tarifa]

Thanks. I'll check it out.

[In_Trance]

I think it was a hoax.

How was it the greatest nuclear disaster ever, yet nature and wildlife are thriving there years later? But humans can't?

[Tarifa]

We saw it live on TV and many documentaries have been made about it.

Nature has a way of getting back on track. Yet, thousands of people have died of thyroid cancer in the following years. 28 firefighters and rescue workers died within a few days, as they were brought in to pick up rubble from the blast with a shovel and minimal protective gear.

[In_Trance]

Thousands of people died... But wildlife thrives... I call bullshit

[NathanDavis]

what did we learn... that we can get away with it, eventually

[Anonymous]

I remember the event, I was just a kid, some old woman heard it on the news, she started yelling at me and my brother that we should go home because radioactive rain is going to start falling soon.

[darkcloud1945]

You expect the truth from Russia, just like getting the truth from the AMERICA LAST DEMOCRATIC COMMUNIST PARTY OF AMERICA, NO DIFFERENCE