Orest Franchuk and Ivan Kendzor from Ukraine are responsible for this contribution. They present two articles from the “Soviet Union”. The first one is a short announcement from 26th April 1986; the second one is from 29th April. Additionally they contributed an article from the newspaper “Flag of Communism”, published on 9th May 1986.
On April 26 1986 at the fourth unit of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was an explosion that completely destroyed reactor.
This is the biggest disaster in the history of nuclear power, because of the number of dead and injured from the consequences people and for economic losses.
Despite this, the population is not warned about the existing threat and offered no recommendations on how to behave, to reduce the impact of radiation. The first official press release was issued only on April 29, but it contained very little information about what happened and gave the impression that any threat was localized, although it was not.
In Kiev and other cities of Ukraine and Belarus were conducted demonstrations and celebrations that were devoted to Labour Day. Those responsible for hiding information explained their decision later on the need to prevent panic among the population. While in Kiev, May 1, 11:00 hammafon of Academy of Sciences of Ukrainian SSR fixed a value of 2500 mcr / h (at this time there was a parade in the center of Kyiv).
Read the full document
