Chernobyl's Legacy

CHERNOBYL, UKRAINE - JANUARY 2006: On 26th April, 1986, at 1.23am the world's worst nuclear disaster happened at Reactor Number 4 (pictured) at Chernobyl nuclear power station in northern Ukraine. 190 tons of highly radioactive material were released into the atmosphere destroying the lives and land of millions of people. The explosion exposed the people around Chernobyl to radiation 90 times greater than from the Hiroshima bomb. The UN estimates that 9 million people, including 4 million children, are affected by the disaster. Radiation specialists expect nearly 1 million people to develop cancer as a direct result of the accident. In Belarus, next door to Ukraine, almost 400,000 people have been forced to leave their homes and become environmental refugees as a result of the contamination left by the explosion. Around 2,000 towns and villages have been abandoned and become a radioactive desert, overgrown with poisoned vegetation and fenced off by barbed wire. 20 years after the disaster 99% of the land in Belarus is contaminated. 25% of Belarusan farmland is a nuclear wasteland. Thyroid cancer has increased by 2,400%. Congenital birth defects have increased by 250% and there has been a 1,000% increase in suicides in the contaminated areas. (Photo by Tom Stoddart/Exclusive by Getty Images)