On 26 April 1986, a sudden surge of power destroyed unit four of the nuclear power station at Chernobyl, Ukraine. The accident and fire caused massive amounts of radioactive material to be released into the environment.

Chernobyl was not the only city affected by the explosion, in fact it can be considered a small city in comparison to the city of Pripyat. While Chernobyl had only fourteen thousand residents, Pripyat housed almost fifty thousand people, all of which, were forced to evacuate. In fact to this day none of those fifty thousand residents are allowed to return. Due to the mass numper of citizens displaced from their homes in the areas surrounding the power plant, a whole new city, named Slavutych, was built solely for the thousands that were evacuated.

Officially, several dozen people were killed, and many others became sick due to the prolonged exposure of radiation prior to the evacuation. A few workers died immediately, however most of the technicians in unit four, and the firefighters who responded to the call, suffered agonizing deaths in the weeks following due to the exposure to extremely high levels of radiation.

This however was not the first major accident involving nuclear power, the first was Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania in 1979, and then more recently Fukushima in 2011.

Nuclear power was considered a safe and effective alternate power source that did not use the limited fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and natural gas. Even after the accident at Three Mile Island, cities continued to build nuclear power plants, however the accident at Chernobyl caused most countries to begin programs that phased out its nuclear power plants.

The worse part of the accident is that it never should have happened. The test that caused the explosion was not even supposed to take place. However a flawed design and human error caused one of the worst environmental disasters in the world’s history.
A product always carries certain side generic cialis viagra effects which include anxiety, pain in the stomach, head ache and a blurred vision too. viagra generika find out content It is essential to talk to your partner. Hence viagra for sale it is very important to understand the root of your problem. With the intention to get the title of a pet veterinarian, a person ought to possess a prerequisite qualification and the pet docs ought to have licensed registration. viagra no prescription
–Cory Strange

Photo Caption: Abandoned School room in Pripyat, Ukraine. Reprinted from “The Long Shadow of Chernobyl”

Meet the Author

I am a college freshmen from Livonia, Michigan. I graduated from Stevenson High School in Livonia. I really don’t have any idea what I want to major in which is why I decided to take my general education classes at Schoolcraft College before deciding where I want to go to get my Bachelor’s degree.