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
Chernobyl necklace of thyroid cancer may require surgery. The surgery may leave the patient with one or two horizontal scars at the base of the neck, dubbed the Chernobyl necklace. After the Chernobyl disaster, incidents of thyroid cancer among civilians in Belarus, Ukraine, Russia, and Poland have risen sharply. It is estimated that many of those affected have the necklace, however, no statistical information of the affected population exists at this time. See the article on Chernobyl disaster effects for details. After the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, experts including Robert Alvarez and Natalia Manzurova believe that Japan faces a similar situation: its