In the next two posts we will look to demonstrate the varying scales that both man-made and natural disasters can impact upon all manner of scales. Both the initial examples we will use were chosen as they are both older examples than other options which allows us to investigate more long term implications and have had different scales of implications. We will be looking at Chernobyl in Ukraine firstly in this post and soon afterwards we will look at Kobe in Japan.
Chernobyl, Ukraine [Map]
On April 26th 1986, an accident caused by a sudden surge of power at Unit 4 of the nuclear
power station at Chernobyl destroyed the reactor and released massive amounts of radioactive material into the environment. The impacts of this disaster are still felt today through medical issues and political battles as just two examples. This video gives some images from the site of the disaster. The medical and political issues appear tied together from the research I have done prior to this post. Attempting to find accurate statistics regarding health issues seems hugely biased by political affiliation, and to provide the broadest scale of difference I could for you all, here are two articles displaying the 'facts' pushed by:-
The difference in the statistics is staggering. 56 deaths as claimed by the Nuclear lovers compared to hundreds of thousands by the nuclear haters. Interestingly ignored by the WNA are effects other than death tolls while Greenpeace use the word 'prediction' very often, perhaps just a coincidence....
Politically it would appear that the scale of impact Chernobyl has had varies massively depending upon your political affiliation, meanwhile this also demonstrates one long term impact of Chernobyl. To this day Chernobyl provides Greenpeace with its central anti-nuclear argument, meanwhile the WNA has Chernobyl forever as the thorn in its side that it just cannot remove. From this alone we begin to display how the scale of almost any event can be skewed by political bias in the media representing it, a matter to be aware of whenever you pick up a newspaper. Always be critical of what you read!
As recently as just a couple of weeks before this post, issues surrounding the management of Chernobyl were raised by Ukraine's President. This article displays the scale of impact the Chernobyl disaster is still having today as a very much international scaled issue with links to the US and Europe as a broad entity. The level of funding required still now to safely seal the reactor at Chernobyl close to 24 years since the initial accident demonstrates vast scale of impact that this disaster has had, and will continue to have for a long time to come.
The after effects of the Chernobyl disaster can still be seen at work very clearly today and hopefully with the links we have provided you could begin to help you investigate this matter further if you wish as there is so much to discover about this issue beyond mere matters of scale.
As recently as just a couple of weeks before this post, issues surrounding the management of Chernobyl were raised by Ukraine's President. This article displays the scale of impact the Chernobyl disaster is still having today as a very much international scaled issue with links to the US and Europe as a broad entity. The level of funding required still now to safely seal the reactor at Chernobyl close to 24 years since the initial accident demonstrates vast scale of impact that this disaster has had, and will continue to have for a long time to come.
The after effects of the Chernobyl disaster can still be seen at work very clearly today and hopefully with the links we have provided you could begin to help you investigate this matter further if you wish as there is so much to discover about this issue beyond mere matters of scale.
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