Major UN report counts human cost of Chernobyl
17:33 05 September 2005 
NewScientist.com news service 
Rob Edwards 
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The huge cloud of radiation that spewed from the broken reactor at 
Chernobyl in 1986 will kill 4000 people, says the most authoritative 
report yet on the nuclear disaster.
The radiation also caused 4000 thyroid cancers amongst young people and 
contaminated more than 200,000 square kilometres of Europe. And the stress 
of events triggered widespread mental health problems amongst the 
populations of the worst-hit countries.
These are the conclusions of the biggest study to date of the impact of 
the explosions that ripped apart Chernobyl reactor number 4 on 26 April 
1986. It was compiled by the Chernobyl Forum, comprising more than 100 
scientists, eight UN agencies and the governments of Russia, Belarus and 
Ukraine.
The total amount of radioactivity released by the accident over 10 days 
was huge, reaching 14 exabecquerels (14 x 1018 becquerels). Previous 
estimates of the death toll this would cause have varied  from under 50 
clean-up workers to hundreds of thousands of people across Europe.
But the UN study predicts the real number that will die from long-term 
cancers caused by the radiation to be about 3940. The deaths will be among 
the 586,000 most contaminated by the accident - the 200,000 clean-up 
workers, the 116,000 evacuated from around the plant and the 270,000 
residents of the most radioactive areas.
Paralysing fatalism
In addition, some 50 emergency workChernobyl unfortunately set back the development of nuclear 
power by decades," he says. "This authoritative study will help put its 
real impact on people and the environment into perspective."

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