National, permanent, forced Chernobyl nuclear disaster

The disaster On the 26th of April 1986 a sudden surge of power caused the 4th reactor in the Chernobyl nuclear plant to go into meltdown and release of nuclear radiation The area is now thought to be uninhabitable for 3000 years because of the high levels of radiation.

Evacuation The Ussr already had policies in place in case of this event and an exclusion one of 10km, later increased to 30km, was set up. Around 50,000 residents of Pripyat were evacuated however almost 5,000 remained because they either refused to leave or stayed to help the clean up In June of 1986 a further 20,000 people were evacuated

Where they were evacuated to Gomel is a city in Belarus where a lot of the migrants were resettled but a lot of migrants made the longer journey to Moscow as they wanted to be clear of the radiation. Moscow was not much affected by the influx of people because of its scale Around 73,000 migrants were resettled in Gomel and there was a lack of jobs and housing A small number of migrants were resettled in France but that number is thought to only just over 100 people

consequences The strain that the migrants put on the Ussr to provide housing was massive with new housing being built on rural sites as well as making large number of urban apartments available Its thought that the large migration was one of the big factors as to why the Ussr split up in 1991 The authorities in Gomel built a research and medical center which made some discoveries about the effects of radiation