Photo credit: Memorial complex to resettled villages of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone / Jbuket / ru.wikipedia.org (CC BY-SA 3.0)
International Day of Remembrance of the Chernobyl Disaster is celebrated on Monday, April 26, the Parliamentary Gazette writes. 35 years have passed since the most famous man-made disaster. It happened in 1986.
An explosion at one of the power units of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant led to the collapse of the reactor, and a huge amount of radioactive substances got into the environment. The radioactive cloud spread over most of the territory of the USSR and European countries. In the very first moments, more than 30 people died. Also, the victims of the accident are liquidators who extinguished fires, cleared the territory, while receiving huge doses of radiation.
More than half a million people worked in the 30-kilometer zone around the nuclear power plant. Among them were specialists from various departments, civil and military.
The Day of Participants of Elimination of the Consequences of Radiation Accidents and Disasters and the Memory of the Victims of these Accidents and Disasters was established in Russia in 1993. The country honors the memory of the victims and pays tribute to the living liquidators.
Commemorative events and actions are organized throughout the country. Their participants are not only Chernobyl veterans, but also government officials, clergymen, and public figures.
Russkiy Mir
