Key Issues
Chernobyl Accident and Its Consequences
View this fact sheet as a printer-friendly PDF
April 2006
Key Facts
April 2006
Key Facts
- The 1986 accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine, then part of the former Soviet Union, is the only accident in the history of commercial nuclear power to cause fatalities from radiation. It was the product of a severely flawed Soviet-era reactor design combined with human error.
- Key differences in U.S. reactor design, regulation and emergency preparedness make it highly unlikely that a Chernobyl-type accident could occur in the United States.
- Twenty-eight highly exposed reactor staff and emergency workers died from radiation and thermal burns within four months of the accident, and 19 more by the end of 2004. Officials believe the accident also was responsible for some 4,000 cases of thyroid cancer.
- A landmark United Nations study published in September 2005 estimated that while 4,000 people theoretically could die from radiation-induced cancers, only 56 deaths could be attributed to radiation exposure from the accident. That total includes the 47 emergency workers mentioned above and nine people who died from thyroid cancer—most of whom were either children or adolescents at the time of the accident.
- Most emergency workers and people living in contaminated areas received relatively low whole-body radiation doses, comparable to natural background levels, according to the study.
- The study also found no evidence of increases in leukemia or other cancers, decreased fertility or congenital malformations.
- Apart from radiation impacts, “the largest public health problem created by the accident” was its effect upon the mental health of the 600,000 people living in affected areas at the time of the accident, the report found.
