CHERNOBYLThe Chernobyl accident happened in Ukraine on April 26, 1986. The nuclear power plant that powered Chernobyl was flawed and over heated causing a reaction which destroyed the city. The plant itself was the only building which was damaged but the radiation encompassed the city and forced the everyone in a 36 radius of Chernobyl to evacuate. A total of 200,000 people migrated at least 18 miles away from the power plant.The two explosions in Chernobyl released a hundred radioactive elements into the air, most of them, however, decayed quickly; some like iodine, strontium, and caesium were much stronger and more dangerous. Iodine lead to thyroid cancer, strontium lead to leukaemia, and caesium traveled the farthest of all the elements. To stop the fire that started because of the two explosions emergency crews went into helicopters and dropped sand on the reactor debris; they also poured boron to stop anymore nuclear reactions from happening.

A majority of the five million residents received small doses comparable to natural background levels. There was an incident after the explosion where milk got contaminated with radioactive iodine. Six thousand people were diagnosed with thyroid cancer. Fortunately ninety nine percent of the patients were treated successfully, sadly fifteen died.
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Twenty seven years after the meltdown at the power plant in Chernobyl; the structures still stand like ghostly memories of the past. Apartment buildings, carnivals, shopping centers, and an erie concrete wall surrounding the city shows how a simple and routine safety test can result in the deaths of hundreds of people and the suffering of hundreds more. Today Chernobyl stands silent with only few visitors to witness the horror for themselves and the empty buildings waiting to fill the rooms with people who will never come home.

*Chernobyl power plant. located in Chernobyl, Ukraine
*Chernobyl power plant. located in Chernobyl, Ukraine

The picture above shows the nuclear power plant after its meltdown on that horrifying day in April of 1986. Some of the citizens of Chernobyl stayed in the city and thought nothing of the fallout radiation from the plant; because they stayed in the city many of them developed severe radiation poisoning. The cells of the victims became saturated with radiation and caused there arms and legs to swell to an enormous size; (as shown in the picture below). Many of the men and women who did eventually escape the city ended up with minor radiation poisoning, their children having birth defects, but nothing like the acclaimed nuclear war game, fallout.
**Victim of Radiation poisoning. Chernobyl, Ukraine
**Victim of Radiation poisoning. Chernobyl, Ukraine

Multiple Choice - OK ~Mr. C.

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