A YouTube Listicle Script on the Chernobyl Catastrophe

Although at one point of time, a nuclear power plant in Ukraine’s city of Chernobyl presented no obvious outward harm, anything nuclear-related always harnesses potential risk.  Unfortunately, that risk would turn into a full blown reality on April 26, 1986.  They say time is healing and although in some instances that rings to be true, with the incident of Chernoybyl, even with time, unfortunately the city and neighboring regions still suffer the impacts that took place that day.

In the aftermath of World War 2 and in the midst of the Cold War, the Union of Soviet Social Republics or otherwise more commonly known as the Soviet Union, erected four nuclear reactors in 1977.  The fourth is primarily the one held in question and essentially responsible for engraving a deep, irreversible mark in history and ultimately led to the downfall of said Soviet Union and not to mention, dramatically impacted lives including humans, wildlife, and nature.

Upon investigation, the disastrous accident occurred as a result of a test gone wrong.  Workers were testing the cooling and electrical mechanisms of the fourth nuclear reactor or “Chernobyl 4 Reactor” as it was formally called.  The objective was to see if in the event of a power shutdown, if the reactor could still be successfully cooled.  Plans went entirely awry as there was an unexpected and unanticipated power surge.  Workers desperately tried to stifle the power surge in efforts to deactivate and shut it down.  But it was too late.  Another power surge within the reactor already had its gears in motion consecutively causing explosions within brittling the reactor’s makeup all the way to its nuclear center which served to be the most detrimental of all.  Once the nuclear core was exposed, radioactive material freely escaped wreaking havoc into the atmosphere.  It was chaos.  The damage was done and ongoing.  There was no stopping it at that point.  Although the physical fires that were a product of the explosions were put out, there was not much that could be done for the escaped radioactive material although efforts were carried out to contain it as best as it could possibly be given the difficult circumstances.  At first, the Soviet Union attempted to keep the events at Chernobyl on the downlow.  However news quickly leaked and the damages were speaking for themselves.  It was not something that could be shrouded in secrecy but the efforts to do so contributed to the Soviet Union’s ultimate downfall.

Some find the Cold War to blame for the Chernobyl disaster in the sense that it left the Soviet Union isolated which may have impacted proper safety protocols and regulations being made and upheld.  Others blame the actual makeup of the reactors and power plant deeming them as faulty.  And others blame the workers saying that they went against safety protocols.  Whatever it was, it doesn’t change the fact that the aftermath was and still remains a disaster in the works of being cleaned up even thirty plus years after the fact.

Chernobyl wasn’t always attributed to chaos.  Rather, a roll of film was discovered decades after the accident that tells otherwise.  Although it was a nuclear power plant, that doesn’t change the fact that it was a workplace and was treated as such.  The roll of film which was a compilation of photos captured on a Vilia camera prototype was traced back to having been captured by Aleksander Shubovskiy between 1979-80.  At that point in time, the power plant was in the process of being breathed to life as it was still in the works of construction.  Shubovskiy happened to be one of the workers hired by a third party company, “Spetsenergomontazh”, to aid in the construction of the plant.  However, the days of construction were steadily coming to an end and Shubovskiy thought what better way of commemorating the completion of the project than a photo op?  So he went about capturing photographs of his colleagues and even himself.  The photos depicted different tasks designated for the construction including welding, metal cutting, crane operations, and rigging to name a few.  The photographs definitely shed light on some questionable practices as the photos show some dangerous and risky practices being carried out that safety protocols of today would sternly admonish. The photos even captured more laid back moments like coworkers gathering around for lunch and the like.  Although the photos may not sound the most interesting in comparison to other facets of photography, the discovery of the film was seen as a shining breakthrough as it shed light into the past of what unbeknownst to everyone at the time, would later become the scene for what the world would come to know as the scene of the most detrimental and disastrous nuclear accident in history.

Aleksander Shubovskiy’s construction days on the Chernobyl plant inevitably came to an end and he set out to process the film but procrastinated in the actual printing of the images for a later time.  However, naturally as life takes its course, Shubovskiy never quite got around to printing said images as he got busied with other unrelated assignments so the film was left unprinted and stored away in his home in Pripyat, Ukraine which happened to be near in proximity to Chernobyl.  In February of 1986, Shubovskiy found himself being whisked off to another assignment in a different city, Yakutia.  It was there when he was on assignment there that he later heard news of what had tragically transpired at Chernobyl.  It wasn’t until about a year after the catastrophic events that Shubovskiy was able to get back into his home in Pripyat to salvage his belongings.  However, as it turned out, there was not much to salvage as the place had been evidently robbed.  However, lucky for the film, it had been left safe and untouched as whoever robbed the place probably saw no intrinsic value in it.  Shubovskiy took the film to his new home where he forgot about it.  It wasn’t until decades later until the photographs were printed alas and cast light into what Chernobyl was like before the catastrophe.

Naturally, as one would expect, radiation when not handled with the necessary precautions can have both unpredictable and equally dangerous consequences.  The tragic accident at Chernobyl was no exception in that regard.  It proved to be both lethal and carcinogenic.  Many of the immediate workers on the scene suffered severe radiation sickness which ultimately led to death in about 31 accounted cases.  Two workers had unfortunately died immediately on impact due to the explosions that took place on site.  The remaining 21 deaths were a result of the radiation exposure and consisted of both the plant workers as well as firefighters who had been recruited to come and aid in extinguishing the fires that had escalated at the plant.

The toll on human life was not exclusive to the workers directly on site however.  To put it into perspective, the Chernobyl catastrophe is said to have contributed a toxic exposure of 100 times more radiation into the atmosphere than the atomic bombs that were launched on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan during World War 2.  It is no secret that the effects in Japan that transpired as a result of the atomic bombing were reprehensible and those regions in Japan are still recovering today.  That just goes to give a small glimpse of what one could expect from a radiation exposure that was accounted to be 100 times more in its amount of radiation such as that in Chernobyl.  Even though the physical event that transpired it all has long ago concluded, the effects of it live on which make it exceptionally difficult to stash away the catastrophe as a thing of the past.  The radiation that escaped has left Chernobyl and several neighboring regions, including neighboring countries, Belarus and Western Russia, still contaminated as lasting impacts of the nuclear accident.

The events that spiralled at Chernobyl have been correlated to over 6,000 cases of thyroid cancer in both adults and children.  Children who were five or younger when the accident happened are said to have been and are still more susceptible to medical complications that impact their dental health, immunity, growth, and place them at 10 times the risk of developing cancer.  Not only that, but it has also been linked to a rise in birth defects.  Statistics conducted as recently as 2015 have shown that Ukraine tallies nearly 6,000 babies born yearly with genetic heart defects which are correlated to the leftover radiation.  Overall, there has been a hefty percentage increase of 200% for birth defects and even higher, 250% for birth deformities, primarily for those children born in areas deemed as “fallout” regions from the radiation surrounding Chernobyl.  The United Nations International Children Emergency Fund or otherwise known in its abbreviated form, UNICEF, has narrated that in a statistical breakdown of health effects in children, there has been increases of 38% in cancerous tumors, 43% in blood disorders, and 63% in muscular, connective tissue, and bone illnesses and disorders.  A bold 85% of children in Belarus, a neighboring country to Ukraine, are said to experience some level of impact from the accident in the sense that even if the effects are not outwardly obvious, they carry genetic markers that make them susceptible to health decline as well as their future generations.  Those numbers are undoubtedly a lot to take in and it is extremely disheartening that this is where the situation still relatively remains today.

What happened at Chernobyl has not only affected humans but it has also affected the wildlife including animals and land as well.  About 20% of Belarus’ farmland is still unusable.  Animals have been spotted to experience a rise of mutations.  Groundwater is unsafe to drink.  It is also put into question whether the crops grown in the soil in fallout regions are safe to consume as it is predicted that the produce is affected by the remnants of the radiation in the soil from the incident thus making them unsafe to consume and potentially may even be carcinogenic culprits.

As far as when things will be back to normal in Chernobyl, that is still a question that is relatively still up in the air.  It is estimated that the area and neighboring regions will still be in cleanup efforts for decades and decades to come.  Scientists have even gone to the extent of predicting that the region and neighboring regions deemed as “exclusion zones” will not be safe to inhabit for a bold and hefty 20,000 years!!!  However, with that said, it is not to say that people are not currently inhabiting those regions.  In fact, some have returned to their old family homes to nostalgically resume the farm life they once lived as children and adolescents before the catastrophe at Chernobyl.  That primarily applies to the elderly.  However, families who are fleeing crises or conflicting situations have also been attracted to the area due to the highly affordable land.  Some homes and land can be purchased at what amounts to a meager price of a few hundred American dollars!  The price tag can be exceptionally tempting especially for those escaping some sort of conflict.  However, considering the nature of the area that is still contaminated from Chernobyl, it holds the potential of a not so pretty price as well pertaining to health primarily.  It’s a double-edged sword one can say.  As far as living conditions go, there is access to electricity, gas, and phone lines.  However, as for water and sewage, the area lacks any running and functional systems intact.  As mentioned before, the groundwater has been designated as unsafe to drink as it is still heavily contaminated.  However, there are wells present but there still exists a risk factor with those as well.  All water must be boiled first especially in the case of drinking water to aid in minimizing potential risks.  As far as maintaining a livelihood with work, there are no working opportunities considering the nature of the area and how they are still considered exclusion zones so that leaves those who choose to live there to live off of either savings or welfare and live off the land meaning crops and livestock.  Although, it is possible to grow crops and raise animals and the like, as mentioned prior, it is not without risk as the soil is still contaminated so it puts the produce that is hence produced from the crops in question as to whether they are truly safe to consume.

The catastrophic accident that transpired at Chernobyl between on the 26th of April in 1986 is a tragedy that will forever leave its muddled mark on history.  Although several diligent efforts have been made and are still in the making to reinstate a sense of order, the area and neighboring regions unfortunately have several years more ahead, maybe even thousands before normalcy will truly be achieved due to the gravity of the impacts from the events that transpired on that fateful day.  Although the current circumstances still remain grim, as with anything in life, it does well to view through lenses of hope for a better and brighter future ahead.