On April 26, 1986 the worst nuclear accident in history too place in southern Ukraine as a reactor at a nuclear power plant exploded and burned. Up to 30% of Chernobyl’s 190 metric tons of uranium was in the atmosphere. This resulted in 28 deaths, more than 100 injuries, ultimately around 4000 people were exposed to high levels of radiation, while around 5000 people were exposed to low levels of radiation, and all this could lead to radiation-related cancer.

Assessing Chernobyl’s ecological impact is an incredibly complex problem for variety of reasons. The radioactive material, which was spewed out of the reactor, did not uniformly coat the surrounding areas. The amount of radiation the organisms were exposed to depends on the distribution of radioactive particles and where these organisms live. Also, every living organism reacts differently to an exposed radiation. Humans are the most sensitive and can only withstand a few grays of radiation.

Radioactive materials, such as radioactive caesium is continuously taken up and passed on by organisms in forest ecosystems, the animals and plants in affected forests and mountains are particularly contaminated. People are getting smaller amounts of radioactive caesium, but the doses they receive from forest products are expected to remain high for decades, because the decrease of the radioactive caesium will be very slow. For example, after the Chernobyl disaster the transfer of the radioactive caesium has been shown from lichen to reindeer and from reindeer meat to human in Finland, Norway, Russia and Sweden, that caused significant problems for the indigenous Sami people.

Contamination of rivers decreased rapidly during first weeks, because the radioactive materials decayed, were diluted or absorbed by the surrounding soils. The fish absorbed these radioactive materials and high concentration of radioactive caesium was found in fish as far away as in Scandinavia and Germany. Aquatic bodies are still being contaminated by runoff of radioactive materials released from contaminated soils, even though the levels of these materials are low, in some “closed” lakes in Russia and Ukraine both water and fish will be contaminated for decades.

The Chernobyl disaster has left its footprint on the landscape where it once laid. The accident followed increased numbers of mutated species. But after so many years wildlife has reclaimed the land and we can see how the intrusive nature of human life could affect the environment.