Fallout from Chernobyl

400 million people exposed in 20 countries

Chernobyl’s political fallout

•Stimulated Gorbachev’s glasnost (openness)

•Stimulated nationalism in Ukraine, Belarus, and other republics that lost clean-up workers.

•Growth of environmental opposition

•Questioning of the heart of technocratic power

–Soviet leaders were engineers, not lawyers

–USSR collapsed within 5 years.

Radiation and Health

• Health effects as a result of radiation exposure: -increased likelihood of cancer

-birth defects including long limbs, brain damage, conjoined stillborn twins -reduced immunity

-genetic damage

8,000 deaths in 14 years

3.5 million sick, one/third of them children

My grandmother, by Luda

Death of my life, by Marina

Chernobyl is war, by Irena