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On April 26, 1986, Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station reactor number 4 exploded at 1:24 a.m. "Tons of radioactive dust was" unleashed "into the air…transported by winds, [and] it contaminated both hemispheres of our planet, settling wherever it rained. The emissions of radioactivity lasted [short-term] for 10 days."(1) On 29 April, "fatal levels of radioactivity were recorded…in Poland, Austria, Romania, Finland, and Sweden."(2) The day after (30 April), it hit Switzerland and Italy. By 2 May, it reached France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Great Britain, and Greece. The next day, Israel, Kuwait, and Turkey were contaminated. Then, over the next few days, "radioactive substances" were recorded in Japan (3 May), China (4 May), India (5 May), and the US and Canada (6 May). The radioactive spew from this explosion was "200 times greater than the atomic bomb at Hiroshima."(3) Not one person was safe from this catastrophic nuclear explosion; and "65-million people were contaminated...more than 400,000 people were forced to evacuate the area [around Chernobyl], losing their homes, possessions and jobs, as well as their economic, social, and family ties."(4) The long-term and hidden costs of radioactive contamination have never been adequately reported by mainstream news. According to the authors (including the distinguished Dr. Rosalie Bertell) of a new book, "Chernobyl: The Hidden Legacy" "[i]t will take millennia to recover…[before an area] as large as Italy, will return to normal radioactive levels in about 100,000 years time."(5)

The Ministry of Emergency Situations and protection of the Population against the aftermath of the Chornobyl Nuclear Catastrophe expects to begin storing the radioactive waste that accumulated as a result of the accident at the Chornobyl nuclear power plant in the specially equipped near-surface facility for storage of solid nuclear waste at the Chornobyl nuclear plant in the period of June-August 2009 Emergency Situations Minister Volodymyr Shandra announced this at a press conference.

"Twenty-four years after the Chernobyl nuclear accident, the station's director at that time says that the accident "taught no one anything" not because people could not have learned from what happened there but rather because the Soviet government and other backers of nuclear power did not want to learn lest they undermine their corporate interests. Indeed, Viktor Bryukhanov, the Chernobyl plant's director from its establishment in 1970 to the time of the accident who was then sentenced to ten years in prison for his role in the disaster, says Moscow preferred to "liquidate the symbol of the danger [Chernobyl and other plants represent] rather than deal with its causes." In an interview with Odnakoj.ru, Bryukhanov, 74, talks about the 1986 accident which claimed 31 lives immediately, exposed 600,000 people involved in the cleanup to dangerous levels of radiation, and resulted in almost 18,000 premature deaths among them since that time (www.odnakoj.ru/exclusive/interline/chernobxlq_nikogo_i_nichemy_ne_naychil/)."

"Last week, a few alternative and environmental news outlets drew attention to a newly published science book that put the cumulative death toll of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident at more than a million-a story that had particular resonance on the 24th anniversary of the reactor meltdown, the book's publication date. But the story did not bleed out into the mainstream media, and even the progressive website Alternet seemed suspicious, calling the 1 million estimate an "astounding allegation" in its headline. The number is dramatically higher than the estimate of 4,000 deaths presented in a 2005 report by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the World Health Organization, and the United Nations Development Program-a figure that has often been criticized as being far too low and influenced by the IAEA's pro-nuclear agenda. Where is the truth here? It's an awfully long way from 4,000 to one million-996,000, in fact. If the truth is somewhere in between the two figures, neither one is of much help to people who are trying to decide whether new nuclear plants-such as those President Obama has proposed-are a safe energy source."