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At the Thyroid Center in Minsk, Belarus, patients get treatment for the destructive effects of radiation to the thyroid gland after being exposed to fallout from the Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986.Photograph by Gerd Ludwig, Nat Geo Image Collection
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Children born to Chernobyl survivors don’t carry more genetic mutations
The largest and most advanced study of its kind not only updates past results, it also provides new details on how fallout from the disaster caused certain cancers.
ByMichael Greshko
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On the morning of April 26, 1986, a reactor in a nuclear power plant in what’s now northern Ukraine exploded and burned triggering what would become history’s deadliest nuclear accident. The hellish fire belched out immense clouds of radioactive fallout that entered people’s lungs, settled on homes, fields, and livestock pastures, and infiltrated their supplies. Milk, salami, and eggs had becom