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
Chernobyl disaster of about 4,000 among the 5 million persons residing in the contaminated areas. The report projected cancer mortality "increases of less than one per cent" (~0.3%) on a time span of 80 years, cautioning that this estimate was "speculative" since at this time only a few cancer deaths are linked to the Chernobyl disaster. The report says it is impossible to reliably predict the number of fatal cancers arising from the incident as small differences in assumptions can result in large differences in the estimated health costs. The report says it represents the consensus view of the eight UN organizations.