”I remember that day when we learnt for the first
time what Chernobyl was… It was a beautiful sunny day. My daughter and me
were sitting in our yard. A soft spring wind was blowing. Suddenly a huge
military truck stopped right in front of us. A man wearing a gas-mask and
a protective costume jumped out of the truck and began to walk around us
gazing at some device that was hanging on his chest… Then he looked at us,
fastened a little sign with a symbol that we had never seen before, got
back into the truck and drove away. Everything happened in complete
silence. No word was pronounced. We were just looking at the sign and the
truck and had no idea what was going on… The day was not that beautiful
any more…”
From the memories of an elderly
woman, Yurovichi village
On the night of April
25-26, 1986, the most terrible disaster happened at the nuclear power
plant near a small Ukrainian town of Chernobyl. The staff
of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant which was considered one of the best
in the country were testing the reactor’s emergency cooling facility and disaster
protection system was deliberately shut off. 44 seconds later the reactor went out
of control. An explosion destroyed a cover slab which weighted 1000 tons.
Graphite coating of the reactor caught fire. More than 40 types of
radionuclides were released into the atmosphere. The total power of the explosion was
100 times greater than the power of the nuclear weapons released on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The force
of the explosion spread contamination over large parts of Belarus, Ukraine and Russia.
According to official reports, thirty-one people died
immediately and 600,000 “liquidators,” involved in fire fighting and clean-up
operations, were exposed to the high doses of radiation. Based on the official
reports, near 8,400,000 people in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia were exposed to
the radiation, which is more than the population of Austria. About 155,000 sq.
km of territories in the three countries were contaminated, which is almost half
of the total territory of Italy. Agricultural areas covering nearly 52,000 sq.
km, which is more than the size of Denmark, were contaminated with cesium-137
and strontium-90, with 30-year and 28-year half-lives respectively. Nearly
404,000 people were resettled but millions continue to live in an environment
where continued residual exposure create a range of adverse effects.
According to experts’ evaluations, the majority of the radionuclide deposition fell on the Belarusian territory. Almost one third of the territory was hit with the radioactive contamination.
The results of the disaster:
23 % of Belarus’ territory was contaminated with
long-living radioactive isotopes (4,8 % of the Ukrainian territory and 0,5 %
of the Russian territory);
2,3 million people were affected;
2,640 sq. km of the plough land was prohibited for use;
17,300 sq. km of the forestry has dangerous radioactive
contamination levels; 135,000 people were resettled to non-contaminated areas
of Belarus, residents of 415 settlements were
evacuated;
9 agricultural plants and factories and 54 collectives
farms were closed; schools, kindergartens, hospitals and other medical
establishments in the contaminated regions were closed too. The contaminated
areas suffered significantly from the outflow of the qualified specialists.
According to experts’ evaluations, the damage caused by the
Chernobyl reactor accident equals to about USD 235 bln which corresponds to 32
Belarus’ annual budgets of 1986 – the year of the disaster.
Since 1991 Belarus has allocated over USD 13 bln. to the mitigation of the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster. This amount exceeds the 1985 national budget by 1,5 times. At the beginning of the 1990th Belarus allocated from 20 to 10? % of its annual national budget to this purpose.
The 1992-1995 National state programme on the mitigation of the Chernobyl disaster consequences focused on creation of safe living conditions for the Belarusian population and improvement of life of the people who suffered from the radiation. Because of the absence of the economic resources necessary for creation of satisfactory living conditions on the contaminated territories, it was decided to protect people’s health mainly through their mass displacement and minimization of the radiation exposure doses.
Minimizing the common risk factors for the health of people mostly affected by the Chernobyl disaster, and mitigating the consequences of the Chernobyl related ecological, economic and social problems were the priorities of the 1996-2000 Programme. The same issues were at the focus of the 2001-2005 Programme under which Belarus entered the stage of the long-term consequences of the disaster in accordance with the radiological, medical and biological criteria.
Detailed information is available on
the web-site chernoby.info,
as well as on the web-site of the State Committee for Chernobyl Matters ("Komchernobyl").
United Nations Office in Belarus
17 Kirov Str., Minsk 220050
Tel. +375 (17) 227 48 76
Fax +375 (17) 226 03 40;
e-mail
The web site of the United Nations Office in Belarus was awarded the Internet Prize "TIBO-2003"
23 % of Belarus’ territory was contaminated with
long-living radioactive isotopes (4,8 % of the Ukrainian territory and 0,5 %
of the Russian territory); 
