Ukraine remembers Chernobyl blast

President Yushchenko joined mourners at the night-time vigil
Ukraine is holding a series of events to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the world's worst nuclear disaster at the Chernobyl power plant.
The blast was marked by tolling bells and a minute's silence at 0123 local time (2223 GMT on Tuesday) - when the alarm was set off on 26 April 1986.

The explosion tore off the plant's roof, spewing radioactive fallout over swathes of the then-USSR and Europe.

President Viktor Yushchenko will visit the site later in the day.

He will meet some of the people who worked at the plant and those who risked their lives to deal with the accident.

A monument to victims is due to be unveiled, and the country's parliament is holding a special hearing into the disaster.

In neighbouring Belarus, also badly affected by fallout, opposition groups are expected to hold a rally in the capital Minsk to protest against government attempts to rehabilitate contaminated areas.

'Ask for forgiveness'

At evening ceremonies, hundreds of mourners, each carrying a single red carnation and flickering candles, gathered for the outdoor Orthodox Christian service at the church in Kiev.

President Yushchenko laid a wreath to remember those who were sent to deal with the accident and to the many who have since been affected.


A sarcophagus was erected over the ruins of Chernobyl's fourth reactor

At precisely 0123, the church bells tolled 20 times.

A similar ceremony got under way an hour earlier, to coincide with 0123 Moscow time, in Slavutych, the town built to house the Chernobyl plant workers displaced by the accident.

To the sound of bells tolling and alarm sirens blaring, mourners laid flowers and candles at a monument dedicated to those who died in the immediate aftermath of the accident.

"I knew all of these people," a tearful Mykola Ryabushkin told the AFP news agency, pointing to the portraits hanging on the monument.

The 59-year-old had been working as an operator at the plant when the explosion happened.

"I look at them and I want to ask them for forgiveness," he said. "Maybe we're all to blame for letting this accident happen."

Disputed death toll

The accident happened at one of four reactors at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, 110km (70 miles) north of the capital, Kiev.


Throughout most of the following day the Soviet authorities refused to admit anything out of the ordinary had occurred.

It was only two weeks after the explosion, when radiation releases had tailed off, that the first Soviet official gave a frank account, speaking of the "possibility of a catastrophe".

Official UN figures predicted up to 9,000 Chernobyl-related cancer deaths. But a Greenpeace report released last week estimated a figure of 93,000. Greenpeace said other illnesses could bring the toll up to 200,000.

A restricted area with a radius of 30km (19 miles) remains in force around the destroyed nuclear reactor which is encased in concrete.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4944898.stm

The lessons of Chernobyl...


In the early hours of 26 April 1986, one of four nuclear reactors at the Chernobyl power station exploded.

Moscow was slow to admit what had happened, even after increased radiation was detected in other countries.

The lack of information led to exaggerated claims of the number killed by the blast in the immediate area.

Contamination is still a problem, however, and disputes continue about how many will eventually die as a result of the world's worst nuclear accident.

25-26 April 1986

Engineers on the evening shift at Chernobyl's number four reactor began an experiment to see whether the cooling system could still function using electricity from the reactor under low power should the auxiliary electricity supply fail.

The test began at 2300. Control rods, which moderate the fission process in a nuclear reactor by absorbing neutrons and slowing the chain reaction, were lowered to reduce output to about 20% of the normal 1600 megawatt output required for the test.

Safety systems disabled

However, too many rods were lowered and output dropped too quickly, resulting in an almost complete shutdown. Concerned by possible instability, the engineers began to raise the rods to increase output.

At 0030 the decision was taken to carry on with the test. By 0100 power was still only at about 7%, so more rods were raised. The automatic shutdown system was disabled to allow the reactor to continue working under low power conditions.

By 0123, power had reached 12% and the test began. The engineers continued to raise rods, but about a minute later power levels suddenly surged to dangerous levels and the reactor began to overheat.

Explosion

The emergency shutdown was triggered, but to no effect. In desperation, the engineers cut power hoping that the control rods would fall back into place under their own weight. However, extreme heat from the reactor core had bent the rod channels out of shape, and they could not move.

About a minute later, with power at roughly 100 times normal, fuel pellets in the core began to explode and water in the cooling system turned to steam, causing the reactor's dome-shaped roof to be blown off and the contents to erupt outwards.

As air was sucked in to the shattered reactor, it ignited flammable carbon monoxide gas causing a second explosion and fire.

Aftermath

Because the reactor was not housed in a reinforced concrete shell, as is standard practice in most countries, the building sustained severe damage and large amounts of radioactive debris escaped into the atmosphere.

Firefighters crawled onto the roof of the reactor building to fight the blaze while helicopters dropped sand and lead in an effort to quell the radiation.

Of the fire and army crews who dealt with the disaster, many did not know or were not informed of the risks, and a number died shortly afterwards of radiation poisoning.

The disaster released at least 100 times more radiation than the atom bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

Much of the fallout was deposited close to Chernobyl, in parts of Belarus, Ukraine and Russia. More than 350,000 people resettled away from these areas, but about 5.5 million remain.

Contamination with caesium and strontium is of particular concern, as it will be present in the soil for many years.

After the accident traces of radioactive deposits were found in nearly every country in the northern hemisphere.

But wind direction and uneven rainfall left some areas more contaminated than their immediate neighbours.

Scandinavia was badly affected and there are still areas of the UK where farms face post-Chernobyl controls.

The number of people who could eventually die as a result of the Chernobyl accident is highly controversial.

An extra 9,000 cancer deaths are expected by the UN-led Chernobyl Forum. But it says most people's problems are "economic and psychological, not health or environmental".

Campaign group Greenpeace is among those to predict more serious health effects. It expects up to 93,000 extra cancer deaths, with other illnesses taking the toll as high as 200,000.

The most obvious health impact is a sharp increase in thyroid cancer. About 4,000 cases of the disease have been seen, mainly in people who were children or adolescents at the time.

Survival rates are high and only 15 people are known to have died. But Greenpeace says there could eventually be 60,000 cases of the disease, among 270,000 cases of all cancers.

The sarcophagus encasing Chernobyl was built in haste and is crumbling. Despite strengthening work there are fears it could collapse, leading to the release of tonnes of radioactive dust.

Work is due to begin on a £600m replacement shelter designed to last 100 years. This New Safe Confinement will be built on site and then slid over the sarcophagus.

The shelter will allow the concrete structure to be dismantled and for the radioactive fuel and damaged reactor to be dealt with. The ends of the structure will be closed-off.

Despite the lasting contamination of the area, scientists have been surprised by the dramatic revival of its wildlife.

Wild horse, boar and wolf populations are thriving, while lynx have returned to the area and birds have nested in the reactor building without any obvious ill-effects.


For pictures...and the article....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/guid...ml/nn1page1.stm

...and twenty years later, we are being threatened by Nuclear war.

What does the Bible say?

Joel 2:30 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood and fire, and pillars of smoke.

...the exact thing a nuclear blast creates.

Zechariah 14:12 And this shall be the plague wherewith the Lord will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.

...Elipton bomb.

Revelation 9:18 By these three was the third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths.

greek word for sulfer, is brimstone. Sulfer is one of the main ingredients of chemical and biological weapons.

Matthew 24:29 Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:

...effects of a nuclear winter?

2 Peter 3:10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.

...the A bomb.

Revelations 8:11 And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.

The word Wormwood is a name for a star that falls to the earth and turns a third part of the waters bitter.

The Ukraine Bible the uses the word, Chernobyle. The same word they used for their nuclear power plants.

Coincidence?