The Legacy and Findings of the Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster

Available for over a year

The world's worst nuclear disaster happened at the Chernobyl nuclear power station on 26 April 1986. In this programme scientists talk about how the accident affected people and the environment. At the time Russia issued a media blackout and the event was only discovered by European scientists such as Helen Apsimon of Imperial College who detected rising radiation levels. John Harrison of the National Radiological Protection Board talks about the effects on human health including the increase in childhood thyroid cancer; George Shaw of Imperial College discusses the effect on vegetation and the discovery that mushrooms were particularly contaminated; radioecologist Brenda Howard talks about the effect on subsistence farming; psychologist Terence Lee discusses the psychological effects of the disaster and Yuri Dubrova of the University of Leicester on the radiation induced mutations in the DNA of people living in Belarus.