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"...The [Chernobyl] catastrophe caused thousands of deaths....It continues to reach into the future to claim new victims and indeed the spectre of another Chernobyl continues to hang over the region..." U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher after a tour of a childrens hospital caring for victims of the disaster, March 19, 1996.
It has now been ten years since the world first experienced the terror of a collective international nightmare - the explosion at the then Soviet Union's Chernobyl nuclear reactor. The accident, which occurred on April 26, 1986, blamed for the deaths of some 2,500 people,* has affected millions and displaced hundreds of thousands, many of whom have still not been able to return to their homes. As radiation was released into the environment after the accident, people across Europe and beyond became aware just how dependent their well-being was on the decisions made, and the risks taken, far away in the Ukraine. Sadly, although Chernobyl remains the largest civil nuclear disaster, it may not be the last. There are currently 430 commercial nuclear power reactors operating world-wide. Ten years after the Chernobyl accident, the world has yet to wean itself off of the most dangerous energy source yet devised by humankind: nuclear power. *according to the head of the Ukrainian Radiological Studies Centre, Viktor Poyarkov.
Last updated Tuesday 7th May 1996
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