CHORNOBYL: THE FIFTEENTH ANNIVERSARY

Chornobyl chronology

1986

• April 26: At 1:23 a.m., an experiment goes catastrophically awry at the V.I. Lenin Atomic Electrical Station near Chornobyl, some 60 miles north of Kyiv. Reactor No. 4 explodes and catches fire, spewing a vast cloud of radioactive fallout throughout Belarus, Ukraine and most of Europe.
  
  
• April 27: A full 36 hours after the explosion, evacuations begin at Prypiat, a town built to house Chornobyl workers. Residents are given time only to pack enough belongings for a "short trip" and are told they will return in a matter of days.
  
  
• April 28: A terse, four-sentence announcement by TASS, the official Soviet news agency, that an accident has occurred at Chornobyl is the first acknowledgment by the USSR government of the disaster. The TASS report makes no mention of the nature of the accident, nor of the enormous amount of radiation released.
  
  
• May 1: Ignoring internal and Western reports confirming the severity of the radiation release, Soviet officials stage the annual May Day parade; hundreds of Kyiv schoolchildren march down the city's contaminated streets as the Communist elite sends its offspring to safe havens. Several days later, panic-stricken parents swamp Moscow-bound trains with their children.
  
  
• November 17: Construction of a 195-foot-high steel and concrete "sarcophagus" is completed at reactor No. 4. Pravda reports the containment vessel will last "for centuries," but the hastily built structure starts sinking and develops cracks almost immediately following its completion.

1988

• April 26: More than 500 people march along the Khreshchatyk. They hold a demonstration protesting the cover-up of the Chornobyl disaster and advocating the discontinuation of nuclear power generation and the transformation of Ukraine into a nuclear-free zone. Sponsored by the Ukrainian Culturological Club (UCC), the protest is the first ecologically oriented demonstration in Kyiv.
  
  
• November 13: An officially sanctioned ecological demonstration attended by 10,000 people in Kyiv calls on the Soviet government to tell "All the Truth about Chornobyl." The rally is cut short by authorities after speakers start addressing questions of political freedom. Twenty demonstrators are detained.

1990

• February 10: First shipment of humanitarian aid by the Children of Chornobyl Relief Fund arrives at Kyiv-Boryspil aboard the "Ruslan" Antonov-124 transport aircraft.
  
  
• July 13: The United Nations Economic, Social and Cultural Organization adopts a resolution appealing for worldwide cooperation on aid to mitigate the consequences of Chornobyl. The action comes after the USSR, the Ukrainian SSR and the Byelorussian SSR formally request help from the international community.

1991

• May 21: A report released by the International Atomic Energy Agency attributes all medical conditions from the Chornobyl disaster to psychological problems among an ignorant and misinformed population.
  
  
• October 29: The Ukrainian Parliament votes to shut down the Chornobyl plant completely by the end of 1993.
  
  
• December 11: The Ukrainian Parliament passes a resolution demanding the prosecution of Soviet leaders for the Chornobyl cover-up. Among those named are Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, Prime Minister Nikolai Ryzhkov, former Ukrainian Communist Party First Secretary Volodymyr Shcherbytsky and Ukrainian Health Minister Anatoliy Romanenko.

1992

• April 22: The Ministry of Chornobyl releases a statement estimating deaths attributable to the Chornobyl disaster at 6,000-8,000.

1993

• October 21: In the midst of a severe energy shortage, with widespread, daily brownouts common, Parliament votes to keep Chornobyl open and to lift the moratorium on construction of new nuclear plants.

1994

• July 8-10: The Group of Seven summit in Naples pledges $200 million in grant aid to strengthen Ukraine's energy sector and close down Chornobyl.

1995

• July: A G-7 summit in Halifax, Nova Scotia, at the suggestion of Russian President Boris Yeltsin, agrees to hold a summit in Moscow on nuclear issues, including the shutdown of the Chornobyl plant.
  
  
• December 13: The United Nations General Assembly designates April 26, 1996, as International Day in Memory of Chornobyl and seeks improved international cooperation on providing aid to Chornobyl's victims and studying its aftermath.
  
  
• December 20: Ukraine's Minister of the Environment Yuriy Kostenko, visiting Ottawa, signs a Memorandum of Understanding with Sheila Copps, Canada's vice-premier and secretary of the environment, acting on behalf of the G-7. Members of the G-7 are to provide $2.3 billion to close down Chornobyl by 2000. No funds are allocated for the second sarcophagus.

1996

• April 21: At the G-7 summit in Moscow, President Leonid Kuchma reaffirms the decision to shut Chornobyl down. G-7 countries promise to study ways to replace the cracking sarcophagus, but make no new commitments of financial assistance.
  
  
• April 26: This day Ukrainian communities worldwide commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Chornobyl nuclear disaster.

1997

• November 20: President Leonid Kuchma participates in a Chornobyl Pledging Conference organized by the United States as that year's chairman of the G-7. Thirteen countries pledged $36.25 million for the rebuilding of the sarcophagus encasing reactor No. 4.

1998

• July 23: Vice President Al Gore visits the Chornobyl nuclear power plant, becoming the highest ranking U.S. government official to ever visit Chornobyl.

1999

• April 19: The Children of Chornobyl Relief Fund honors First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton with its Lifetime Humanitarian Achievement Award during a special ceremony at the Ukrainian Institute of America in New York. Mrs. Clinton receives a 14-inch bronze sculpture of the Berehynia (protectress) in recognition of her commitment to improving the health of women and children in Ukraine.

2000

• December 15: While hundreds of representatives of the international diplomatic community watch at the Ukraina Palace concert hall, President Leonid Kuchma gives the command to shut down Chornobyl's last functioning reactor once and for all. The audience views the control room of reactor No. 3 via a live feed on a large monitor at the concert hall, while an engineer at Chornobyl throws the switch that halts the huge turbine.

(Based on a compilation by Yarema A. Bachynsky updated by The Weekly staff.)

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, April 22, 2001, No. 16, Vol. LXIX

| Home Page |