Chernobyl Disaster Effects
The 1986 Chernobyl disaster triggered the release of substantial amounts of radiation into the atmosphere in the form of both particulate and gaseous radioisotopes. It is the most significant unintentional release of radiation into the environment to date, with the possible exception of the Fukushima disaster. It has been suggested that the radioactive contamination caused by the Chernobyl disaster greatly exceeded that of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
The work of the Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment (SCOPE), however, suggests that the two events cannot be directly compared with a number, suggesting that one was x times larger than the other. This is partly due to the fact that the isotopes released at Chernobyl tended to be longer-lived than those released by the detonation of atomic bombs, thus producing radioactivity curves that vary in shape as well as size.
Read more about Chernobyl Disaster Effects: Human Exposure To Radiation, Short-term Health Effects and Immediate Results, Controversy Over Human Health Effects
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