On Thursday, February 24, 2022, the Ukrainian authorities announced that Russian forces had taken control of the Chernobyl nuclear plant, which witnessed the worst nuclear disaster in the world.

A spokeswoman for the government agency that runs the station, Yevgenia Kuznetsova, said that Russian forces overran the station on the first day of the Russian offensive.

"After fierce battles, we lost control of the Chernobyl site," said Mikhailo Podolyak, one of the presidential advisers.

"It is impossible to say that the Chernobyl nuclear power plant is safe after a completely useless attack by the Russians," he added. "This is one of the most serious threats in Europe today."

reactor explosion

April 26, 1986: A failed safety test by engineers causes reactor No. 4 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant to explode in Kiev, northern Ukraine, in the former Soviet Union.

The beginning of the story dates back to when about 200 workers and employees of the Chernobyl reactor were working on tests in 3 units of the plant.

Things went well until a sudden rise of 4,000 degrees Celsius in temperature resulted from the interruption of the cooling circuit of the fourth reactor, which led to the melting of the reactor core before it exploded.

The radioactive nuclear accident occurred due to a defect in a small button whose function is supposed to shut down the reactor in an emergency, to become in a fleeting moment the cause of the explosion of the heart of the nuclear reactor and record the largest environmental disaster in human history, and as a result of which nuclear radiation leaked equivalent to 500 bombs from Hiroshima that fell in Japan.

Seconds later, loud explosions followed, and graphite lava flew into the sky, leaving a devastation that even the most solid concrete structures could not escape.

The explosion led to an unprecedented widespread dispersal of more than 100 radioactive elements in the surrounding cities and towns.

- After the explosion, Ukraine and neighboring countries witnessed thick clouds, equivalent to 8 tons of nuclear fuel, which rose to the sky, caused and propelled by the flames of a huge fire, and accompanied by dangerous materials.

The explosion killed 31 people, including workers and technicians, either because they were directly exposed to the explosion, or to a large amount of radiation, and more than two thousand people were injured.

In addition to those killed in the explosion, many people who were exposed to radiation died, and as a result, they contracted fatal diseases such as cancer.

Among those affected by the accident were the residents of the areas near the station.

Entire villages disappeared from the geographical map, after the evacuation of the residents of 85 villages from the Republic of Belarus, 4 from Ukraine, and 31 from Russia.

- The world did not know about the disaster that caused the explosion until two days later, as the authorities of the former Soviet Union tried to conceal what had happened, and were even allowing children to go to schools in those days while the winds were pushing radiation to the capital, Kiev.

It was Sweden - which noticed a great deal of nuclear radiation - that revealed to the world the terrible accident, and then the Soviet authorities were forced to briefly announce an "accident" at the Chernobyl plant.

The announcement was contained in a 5-line telegram published by Itar-Tass news agency.

The authorities did not begin evacuating the residents of Pripyat, which is located 3 kilometers from the station, and inhabited at that time by 48,000, including the station’s workers, until about 36 hours after the explosion.

The town has since been deserted and the residents have never returned.

As for the town of Chernobyl, from which the station derives its name, the damage was less than that of Pripyat.

May 1, 1986: The Soviet authorities asked the citizens of Ukraine to take the necessary precautions.

late announcement

May 14, 1986: President Mikhail Gorbachev spoke about the disaster for the first time, breaking the silence that prevailed at the top of the Soviet leadership.

During the weeks following the explosion, radioactive elements, including plutonium, iodine, strontium, and cesium, contaminated an area of ​​about 150,000 square kilometers (about the size of Tunisia) in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine.

These elements, which are carried by the wind, were also discovered later in distant regions such as Sweden and Finland and across the northern hemisphere.

The Soviet government at the time evacuated an estimated 200,000 people from the areas surrounding the station, and created a buffer zone around it 30 kilometers in diameter, the area around which the recent fires broke out.

- Digital data confirmed that the Chernobyl explosion affected the lives of about 600,000 people, including about 200,000 directly, most of whom were firefighters and soldiers who were tasked with managing the post-disaster phase.

It is estimated that about 5 million people still live in areas affected by radiation.

The United Nations estimated the number of people killed in the accident at 4,000, and the Ukrainian authorities said that the number of victims was 8,000.

Other international organizations have questioned these figures and have predicted that between 10,000 and more than 90,000 people will die as a result of fatal thyroid cancer.

The German Greenpeace organization predicted the death of 93,000 people due to radiation arising from the accident, and the German Medical Organization Against Nuclear War recorded the injury of 4 thousand people in the area of ​​the accident with thyroid cancer.

The authorities were not able to plug the exploded reactor until 6 months after the accident.

1989: Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, visited the Chernobyl reactor.

Disaster area

The German organization stated that the area around the Chernobyl reactor witnessed a significant increase in thyroid cancer rates more than any other types of cancer, especially among those who were 18 years old at the time of the disaster.

Official statistics of the Ukrainian Ministry of Health indicated that 2.3 million of the country's population are still suffering from varying forms of the disaster.

The Chernobyl accident also caused the contamination of 1.4 million hectares of agricultural land in Ukraine and Belarus with polluted radiation.

Scientists expected the region to remain uninhabitable for thousands of years due to the decay of many radioactive elements, such as cesium-137, which has a half-life of 30 years, meaning that half of the amount of cesium will take 30 years to decompose, and half of the remaining amount will decay in another 30 years, and so on.

After the disaster, the Ukrainian authorities declared the area, which includes the city of Pripyat, a disaster area, and built a cordon around it, a distance of 30 kilometers from the site of the reactor, and evacuated more than 100,000 people from their homes.

The measures implemented by the Kiev government also included burying and encasing the damaged reactor with reinforced concrete, to prevent further radiation leakage. However, in recent years this casing has been exposed to cracks.

As a result of these cracks, Ukraine, with international financial support, began constructing an additional steel casing, which cost one billion dollars and was completed in 2012.

1991: Reactor No. 2 shuts down after a major fire.

1996: Reactor No. 1 was closed after the expiry date of its service life.

December 15, 2000: Ukraine shuts down reactor No. 3 and the last at the Chernobyl plant after it was exposed to international pressure, and this reactor supplied Ukraine with about 5% of electric power.

An official ceremony was held on this occasion, which was attended by Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma and more than two thousand officials and foreign guests.

- The Ukrainian president did not express his regret over the closure of Chernobyl, which he said had killed more than 3.5 million people.

He added that approximately 10% of Ukraine's territory has become contaminated with nuclear radiation that resulted from the explosion of reactor No. 4 in 1986, which also led to the displacement of more than 160 thousand residents of the surrounding areas.

2002: The Chernobyl plant is completely closed.

Tests conducted by scientists in the vicinity of the buffer zone of the nuclear plant, showed that the level of radiation is still higher than expected in theory, meaning that the concentration of radioactive elements in those areas is still very high compared to the normal rate.

2010: The Ukrainian authorities began a 5-year process to seal the reactor that caused the disaster, so that the shutdown would be safer.

April 2011: Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev make their first visit to the Chernobyl reactor in Ukraine to mark the quarter century since the nuclear disaster.

Forest fires

April 4, 2020: A large fire lasting more than a week broke out in a forested area near the Chernobyl power plant.

Although the fires were brought under control, as announced by Ukraine, and did not include the station itself, experts warned of an increase in radiation levels and the spread of radioactive materials again.

What scientists fear is that these radioactive elements, whose diameter ranges between 10 nanometers and 20 micrometers, will fly back into the air due to the high heat caused by the fires in the area.

Scientists also warned that these radioactive elements may remain stuck in the atmosphere for months or years, and air currents and winds may carry them to distant areas where they fall again in what resembles nuclear dust that occurs after nuclear explosions.

The Ukrainian government said that the fire did not cause a significant increase in radiation levels, but other sources confirmed that these levels had increased in the atmosphere by about 16 times.

April 16, 2020: Rain fell, which contributed to extinguishing the fires, purifying the atmosphere from radioactive dust and avoiding its spread to other areas.

May 2021: Numerous news reports say fires from nuclear reactions flare up again in the inaccessible vault of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

Researchers observing the reactor discovered a steady rise in the number of neutrons in an underground chamber called 305/2, which is filled with heavy aggregate, concealing a radioactive mixture of uranium, zirconium, graphite and sand that seeps into the basement of the station like lava before solidifying in other formations.

The high levels of these neutrons indicated that these inert compounds are undergoing new fission reactions, which can lead to another explosion, but it will not be as destructive as the explosion that occurred in 1986.