Twenty years ago today at 1:23:44, the Chernobyl NPP reactor number four exploded. Five thousand tons of lead, sand, and other materials were dropped on the resulting fire in an attempt to stop the spread of the radioactive cloud. The world learned of the accident when Western European nuclear facilities identified radiation anomalies and traced […] » about 300 words
Nearly 20 years after the initial events of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of April 26 1986, the story is still unfolding. This month's <a href="http://ngm.com/0604/">National Geographic Magazine</a> tells of the “<a href="http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0604/feature1/index.html">long shadow of Chernobyl</a>” -- grown children of the disaster now fear having their own children while <a href="http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0604/feature1/gallery2.html">some elderly residents return to their old homes</a> inside the 1,000 square mile, still contaminated “<a href="http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0604/feature1/map.html">exclusion zone</a>.” The print article seemed to offer hope, noting that even the pines of the “red forest” -- so called because they received so much radiation that it bleached the chlorophyl from them, and some say the trees actually glowed -- are beginning to grow back now. But the <a href="http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0604/sights_n_sounds/index.html">multimedia companion materials</a> tell a somewhat more morose tale. » about 800 words