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 major release of radioactive material had occurred came not from Soviet sources, but from Sweden, where on 28 April workers at the Forsmark Nuclear Power Plant (approximately 1100 km from the Chernobyl site) were found to have radioactive particles on their clothing. It was Sweden's search for the source of radioactivity (after they had determined there was no leak at the Swedish plant) that led to the first hint of a serious nuclear problem in the Western Soviet Union. Contamination from the Chernobyl disaster was not evenly spread across the surrounding countryside but scattered irregularly depending on weather conditions. Reports