International Chernobyl Disaster Remembrance Day
26th April
The Chernobyl disaster is considered one of the worst nuclear disaster in history. On Saturday 26th April 1986 reactor No. 4 at Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, near the city of Pripyat in the north of the Ukrainian SSR, exploded and deadly radiation leaked from the damaged reactor. After the explosion, a radioactive cloud come out from the reactor spread over large parts of the Soviet Union, now the territories of Belarus, Ukraine and the Russian Federation. It was estimated that more than 8 million people were exposed to the radiation. This accident posed a serious threat to all territories invested by the radioactive cloud. The most serious damages to the health of humans and animals and to our environment, is deemed to be found at the locations surrounding the nuclear power plant.
Chernobyl disaster was rated at 7 (the maximum severity) on the International Nuclear Event Scale. Only another disaster was rated at seven, the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan.
It was what happened at Chernobyl that convinced the United Nation to adopt a resolution on 8th December 2016, precisely designating this date is it to say April 26th, as International Chernobyl Disaster Remembrance Day. In this resolution the General Assembly recognized that three decades after the disaster in the regions hit by the radiation, there remains persistent serious long-term consequences and that the affected communities and territories, which did not recover completely, are still experiencing continuing related needs.
The completion of the placement of the new safe confinement over the old shelter which resulted insufficient to continue to serve for its scope, was a major milestone achieved in 2019, with 2.2 billions Euros provided by over 45 donor nations through funds managed by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).
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