A city stopped in time without hope

25 years ago Chernobyl was headline news. On April 26th 1986 at 1:23 A.M. reactor number four at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, near the town of Pripyat, ruptured a vessel during several extreme power spikes. Several explosions followed and these caused the graphite moderator components of the reactor to be exposed to air, setting them on fire. The fire sent a plume of radioactive fallout into the atmosphere. It drifted over large parts of the Soviet Union and Western Europe. 50 people died as a direct result of the disaster and it is thought up to 4000 people have died as a result of being exposed to the radioactive materials which entered the atmosphere. Over 350.000 were evacuated from contaminated areas around Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. In 2011, 25 years later, the area surrounding Chernobyl still looks like a ghost town.

Photo by David Shindler

Japan’s  Chernobyl

Japan was still reeling from its largest recorded earthquake when an explosion struck the Fukushima nuclear plant on Saturday, followed by a second blast on Monday. Despite government assurances, there are fears of another Chernobyl. The incident has sparked a heated political debate in Germany and looks likely to end the dream of cheap and safe nuclear power.

The Ecological Problems of South America

The ecological problems in the modern world are becoming more and more actual. The ecological disasters influence the environment inevitably.

Cutting out rainforests, dumping the water, polluting the atmosphere, the growth of waste and lack of drinking water have become the most urgent problems in South America. According to the scientific research 80%    species of the world flora and fauna inhabit the rainforests of the Amazon River which might disappear in less than 100 years.
 
40% of rainforests have already been cut off. Their disappearance upsets the oxygen balance. As a result some rare species of animals, birds, fish and plants disappear forever, a number of rivers and lakes dry up.

San Paolo and Buenos Aires are the most polluted cities in SA. Water resources in South America are the second biggest in the world, but they are polluted with communal and industrial waste which threatens the ecological balance in nature.
 
Serious measures to create a system of ecological security should be taken.