Consequences of the Chernobyl accident: 20 years later

The Chernobyl Forum (September, 2005) concluded that in 20 years after the Chernobyl accident along with reduction of radiation levels and accumulation of humanitarian consequences severe social and economic depression of the affected regions and associated serious psychological problems became the most significant problems. The majority of the 600000 emergency and recovery operation workers and five million residents of the contaminated areas in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine received relatively minor radiation doses which are comparable with the natural levels. An exception is a cohort of several hundred emergency and recovery operation workers who received high radiation doses, of whom 28 died in 1986 due to acute radiation sickness and it consequences. Except dramatic increase in thyroid cancer morbidity in those exposed to radioiodine in their childhood and some increase in leukaemia and solid cancer morbidity among emergency and recovery operation workers with high radiation dose no evident growth of radiation-associated cancer diseases and leukaemia was detected in other groups of population. Radiation levels in the environment have reduced by a factor of several hundred since 1986, this ensures that the majority of the previously contaminated land in now safe for life and economic activities. Despite unprecedented scale and character of the Chernobyl accident its consequences for health and life of the affected population are significantly less compared with A-bombing in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Findings of research of consequences of the Chernobyl accident made invaluable contribution to the development of nuclear technology and safety, radioecology, radiation medicine, radiological protection and social sciences. The Chernobyl accident initiated development of the global nuclear safety and radiation protection regime.