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Essay / The Chernobyl Disaster - 1319
To this day, Chernobyl still faces health effects caused by too much radiation. “Radiation is a harmful effect produced on body tissues by exposure to a radioactive substance” (Radiation sickness). There is no treatment for any type of radiation exposure, but people can still survive after high levels of exposure. Over the past 28 years, many residents of Chernobyl have died from radiation received on April 26, 1986. Pregnant women and children were affected more than men exposed to radiation from the nuclear accident. “Between 1992 and 2000, in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine, approximately 4,000 cases of thyroid cancer were diagnosed in children and adolescents (0-18 years), including approximately 3,000 in the age group from 0 to 14 years” (World-Nucléaire). Pregnant women and their unborn children exposed to radiation faced premature births, stillbirths, early neonatal mortality, infections and disease. They were the most affected by the radiation from the Chernobyl disaster. Many health effects are still very visible, even 28 years after the nuclear meltdown in Chernobyl, Ukraine. In the twenty-eight years since the Chernobyl disaster, its impact continues to be evident in rising cancer rates, reduced life expectancy, and the permanent quarantine of the region . Many cases of cancer caused by fusion are undetectable. “The main consequence of the Chernobyl accident is thyroid cancer in children, some of whom were not yet born at the time of the accident” (Thyroid Cancer Effect in Children). The thyroid produces hormones that help regulate your heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature, and maintain your weight. The thyroid is a gland located in the middle of the paper ......s (a unit of weight equal to 1,000 kilograms). “Once the enormous shelter is completed and slid on rails onto the reactor building, planned for 2015, workers can begin dismantling the reactor and disposing of the hundreds of tons of radioactive material inside” (NBC News). Once the structure is built, remote-controlled cranes will extend from the roof to dismantle the sarcophagus (the cover they built during the first 6 months of the disaster) and robots will remove the remaining materials from the disaster. “There are always obstacles, there are always surprises. Every time we dig here, we come across things: old cranes, tracks, or pieces of [nuclear] fuel” (Dodd, Containing Chernobyl: The Mission to Diffuse the World's Worst Nuclear Disaster Site). Everyone is trying to put the pieces together and help the NSC as quickly as possible..