On April 26, 1986, the Number Four reactor of the Soviet nuclear power plant at Chernobyl, Ukraine, suffered a catastrophic explosion during a routine maintenance check, exposing the nuclear core and releasing 50 tons of radioactive material into the atmosphere in what would become the worst nuclear accident in history. The accident was largely the result of a faulty reactor design and bureaucratic incompetence.
Soviet authorities tried to conceal that something catastrophic had occurred as emergency crews tried desperately to contain the fires and radiation leaks. Helicopters dumped tons of sand and boron on the reactor to try and squelch the fires and prevent further radioactive emissions to no avail. After telling residents nothing about the disaster for some 36 hours, Soviet officials finally begin evacuating roughly 115,000 people from nearby towns and villages. Residents were informed it would be temporary and they were told nothing more than they should pack only vital documents and belongings, plus some food. The Kremlin continued to try and hide the extent of the problem but on April 28, Swedish monitoring stations reported abnormally high levels of wind-transported radioactivity in the atmosphere and pressed Moscow for an explanation. The Soviet Union finally acknowledged the extent of the accident had occurred.
The consequences of the Chernobyl accident would be far reaching but perhaps none as important as the political fall out from the Soviet authorities attempt to hide and cover up the accident from their own people. The Chernobyl accident and the attempted cover-up would prove to be a wake up call for Soviet society. It would accelerate a loss of faith and trust in the country’s leaders and the entire Soviet system, which had been building for decades. Chernobyl would prove to be a catalyst for Gorbachev’s Glasnost and Perestroika reforms leading to a new level of debate and grass roots activism never seen before in the USSR. Gorbachev once described the disaster as a “turning point” for the USSR, one that “opened the possibility of much greater freedom of expression, to the point that the system as we knew it could no longer continue”. Pro-independence movements would emerge from Chernobyl protests in the Ukrainian and Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republics, with the ineffectiveness of the Soviet system a key factor. These protests would ultimately lead to the collapse of the USSR five years later.
Tragedy and Farce 