That was from just one of four reactors....
International spread of radioactivity
Four hundred times more radioactive material was released than had been by the
atomic bombing of
Hiroshima. However, compared to the total amount released by
nuclear weapons testing during the 1950s and 1960s, the Chernobyl disaster released 100 to 1000 times less radioactivity.
[66] The fallout was detected over all of Europe except for the
Iberian Peninsula.
[67][68][69]
The initial evidence that a major release of radioactive material was affecting other countries came not from Soviet sources, but from
Sweden, where on the morning of 28 April
[70] workers at the
Forsmark Nuclear Power Plant (approximately 1,100 km (680 mi) from the Chernobyl site) were found to have radioactive particles on their clothes.
[71] It was Sweden's search for the source of radioactivity, after they had determined there was no leak at the Swedish plant, that at noon on April 28 led to the first hint of a serious nuclear problem in the western Soviet Union. Hence the evacuation of Pripyat on April 27, 36 hours after the initial explosions, was silently completed before the disaster became known outside the Soviet Union. The rise in radiation levels had at that time already been measured in
Finland, but a
civil service strike delayed the response and publication.
[72]
Contamination from the Chernobyl accident was scattered irregularly depending on
weather conditions. Reports from Soviet and Western scientists indicate that
Belarus received about 60% of the contamination that fell on the former Soviet Union. However, the 2006
TORCH report stated that half of the volatile particles had landed outside Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia. A large area in Russia south of
Bryansk was also contaminated, as were parts of northwestern Ukraine. Studies in surrounding countries indicate that over one million people could have been affected by radiation.
[73]
Recently published data from a long-term monitoring program (The
Korma-Report)
[74] show a decrease in internal
radiation exposure of the inhabitants of a region in Belarus close to
Gomel. Resettlement may even be possible in prohibited areas provided that people comply with appropriate dietary rules.
In
Western Europe, precautionary measures taken in response to the radiation included seemingly arbitrary regulations banning the importation of certain foods but not others. In
France some officials stated that the Chernobyl accident had no adverse effects.
[citation needed]. Official figures in southern
Bavaria in
Germany indicated that some wild plant species contained substantial levels of caesium, which were believed to have been passed onto them by wild boars, a significant number of which had already contained radioactive particles above the allowed level, consuming them.
[75]
