Chernobyl “celebrated” its 22nd anniversary /Cernobyl “slavil” sve 22. vyroci

April of this year “celebrated” the 22nd anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster (1986)  – the worst nuclear power plant accident in history. Although we know that the Russians were performing some experiments, till this day no one really knows what the possible causes of the explosion were but everyone would soon found out about the after effects. Since Russia didn’t bother to notify the rest of the world, Europe found out about this “little” accident when the radiation levels set off alarms at the Forsmark nuclear Power Plant in Sweden. As far as  Czechoslovakia goes, the first signs of an approaching radiation cloud were signaled by the power plan in Dukovany. To what degree was Czech Republic really contaminated is still up for discussion. “From the medical point of view, the key elements causing radioactive contamination were Cesium (half-life of 30 years) and Iodine (with a half-life of 8 years).” Since cesium was radioactive for quite some time in entered into the food chain, with the highest level of contamination in milk (!!) and leafy vegetables (good think that the Czechs didn’t eat almost any salads back then!). The article says that “the authorities took some measures to reduce the contamination” – I would like to know what measures they were…All I remember from that dark period is that my dad kept giving us Iodine – the first “vitamin supplement” I have ever tasted in my life. What do you remember from that time?

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CZ: V dubnu tohoto roku se “slavilo” 22. vyroci Cernobylske katastrofa (1986), coz je doposavad nejhorsi jaderna havarie v historii jaderne energetiky. Nikdo dodnes nevi, co bylo presnou pricinou teto havarie; vime jen, ze Rusove provadeli jakesi riskantni pokusy a doslo k prehrati a nasledne explozi reaktoru. Svet se o teto katastrofe dozvedel ne od Ruska ale od Svedu, kde mistni elektrarna ve Forksmarku zaznamenala vysoke hladiny radiaktivnich prvku ve vzduchu. Ceskoslovensko zaznamenalo prvni znaky radiaktivniho mraku v Dukovanske elektrarne. Vime, ze celkove mnozstvi radioaktivniho odpadu se da prirovnat k 400 Hirosimskym bombam, ale celkove se znaci stale pod katastrofu lokalni, ne globalni (ufff). Nejvetsim zdravotnim rizikem byl radioaktivni jod s polocasem 8 dnu a cesia s polocasem kolem 30 let (!!).  Diky jeho dlouhemu polocasu se cesium dostalo do potravniho retezce, zejmena do mleka a listove zeleniny ( alespon ze Cesi v te dobe nejdeli skoro zadne salaty!). Jedine co si z teto doby pamatuji  ja bylo, ze nas tata krmil jodem – prvni oficialni “vitamin”, ktery jsem kdy pozrela. A co si pamatujete vy?

Vice si na toto tema muzete precist zde.

Sources:

http://www.radio.cz/en/article/107314

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster

http://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%8Cernobylsk%C3%A1_hav%C3%A1rie