Deaths due to the Chernobyl disaster Deaths due to the Chernobyl disaster The Chernobyl disaster (, "Chornobylʹsʹka katastrofa", "Chernobyl accident") was considered as one of the worst nuclear disasters in history. It occurred on 26 April 1986 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, then part of the Soviet Union, now in Ukraine. The scientific consensus on the effects of the disaster has been developed by the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR). In peer-reviewed publications UNSCEAR has identified 49 immediate deaths from trauma, acute radiation poisoning, a helicopter crash, and from an original group of
Effects of the Chernobyl disaster radiation doses of up to 50 gray (Gy), mostly due to an intake of radioactive iodine-131 (a relatively short-lived isotope with a half-life of 8 days) from contaminated milk produced locally. Several studies have found that the incidence of thyroid cancer among children in Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia has risen sharply since the Chernobyl disaster. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) notes "1800 documented cases of thyroid cancer in children who were between 0 and 14 years of age when the disaster occurred, which is far higher than normal", although this source fails to note the expected rate. The childhood