Chernobyl disaster due to the ballooning in costs for new nuclear reactor safety system standards and the legal costs in dealing with the increasingly hostile/anxious public opinion, there was a precipitous drop in the rate of new startups after 1986. The accident also raised concerns about the cavalier safety culture in the Soviet nuclear power industry, slowing industry growth and forcing the Soviet government to become less secretive about its procedures. The government coverup of the Chernobyl disaster was a catalyst for glasnost, which "paved the way for reforms leading to the Soviet collapse". On 26 April 1986, at 01:23 (UTC+3), reactor
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