My brother was almost never born. It seemed like a moment in time, but it was really only three days. Yet these three days would change my life forever. I feel it was just yesterday my family lived in Kiev, a quiet little town where nothing ever happened, and where all the chernobyl workers lived like my family. But one day that all changed when the accident happened. It was a meltdown in Reactor four at the nuclear power plant. My father (Nana) was working at Reactor one at the time, on the east side repairing the walls, so when the explosion happened it didn't really phase him. He assumed it was a new test the scientist were doing to create a different type of energy for our city, which they did often.
The city looked beautiful, with blooming flowers and budding chestnuts lining the streets and ushering in the Ukrainian spring. Yet foreboding clouds were nowhere to be found. When the explosion happened you could not see or smell the radiation filling the air just the little sparks of light floating. As if the children were running around with giant sparklers. This was unknown to many of the townspeople even my mother. A kind neighbor knew and told my mother that perhaps it might be a good idea to go inside because she heard about a fire at a nuclear plant. In the aftermath of the explosions, my mother (Matb) was outside with me and younger sister, Lena. That information from my father and the neighbors was the extent of my family's knowledge of the Chernobyl accident. For the next several hours, the Soviet government continued business as usual. As if nothing ever happened and that everything was fine, but that was just a big lie.
Government officials merrily went on to celebrate May Day, or "The Day of Spring and Labour" jus...
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...has the same beating heart.”
Tears flooded my face as I let her hand go. I love my mother dearly, but without father I had to be the head of the house. The one to take charge in times like these. She was in not in a good place of mind to be rational. Why had father forsaken us like this, why couldn't we just go home and be with him. The thoughts swirled around my head but the next thing I knew was mother laying on the ground in pain. Her face crinkled and puffy as she clenched her stomach in the delicate hands.
“Anya the baby its coming!”
Her voice was shrill, yet filled with so much fear. Her eyes were darting like trains speeding up and down the railroad. What would father do?
“Matb Ill call for help.” The words escaped my lips as I went flying out the door, down the damp concrete stairs, and into the bustling street to find someone, anyone to help me.
Every since the industrial revolution, society has moved to jobs, factories, manufacturing goods and products, and larger cities. This process called industrialization is when an economy modifies its way of living from an agriculture based living to the production of merchandise in factories. The manual labor that is required for farm work is replaced with mass production on assembly lines. Andrew Blackwell visits this idea of industrialization in Visit Sunny Chernobyl but to a higher extent. Blackwell states “today that society is an industrial one, resource hungry and plant-spanning, growing so inefficiently large, we believe that it is disrupting its own host… It’s not just about living sustainably. It’s about being able to live with ourselves,”
The engineers in Visit Sunny Chernobyl created a new frontier past the safety zone because they want to test the limits of the reactor. What the scientists didn’t account for is that fact that the reactors already had the potential of a dangerous chain reaction. (Blackwell 6) Consequently, their boundary destroying led to catastrophic consequences and the total annihilation of a land area because of massive radiation. Blackwell thought Chernobyl was so horrific he expressed that no one should visit without a “working understanding of radiation and how it’s measured” (Blackwell 7). These are some horrific consequences that followed from surpassing the
Today, Chernobyl is defined as an abandoned city in the northern Ukraine. Pripyat, the city founded in 1970 to house the workers for the nearby Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, is currently described as a ghost town. The population of Chernobyl in 2010 was around 500. Prior to the spring of 1986, the city was inhabited by about 14,000 residents. For $140-$160 U.S. dollars, SoloEast Travel offers guided tours of Chernobyl, but that price does not include the $80 charge for mandatory insurance. Plus, everyone who goes on the tour has to be tested for radiation before leaving the Zone of Alienation, the 19 mile area around the site. Long before the worst nuclear disaster in history, Chernobyl was a city. For more than 300 years after the nuclear fallout, the area will be contaminated.
I rushed out of the bedroom confused. I began to realize what was going on. I ran to where I last saw her and she was not there. Never before I felt my heart sank. My eyes filled with tears. I dropped to my knees and felt the cold white tile she last swept and mopped for my family. I look up and around seeing picture frames of of her kids, grandchildren, and great grandchildren smiling. I turn my head to the right and see the that little statue of the Virgin Mary, the last gift we gave her. I began to cry and walked to my mother hugging her. My father walked dreadfully inside the house. He had rushed my great grandmother to the hospital but time has not on his side. She had a bad heart and was not taking her medication. Later that morning, many people I have never seen before came by to pray. I wandered why this had to happen to her. So much grief and sadness came upon
When I walked inside the front door something didn’t seem right. The feeling of sorrow overwhelmed the house. It was so thick I could literally feel it in the air. Everyone was motionless. They were sulking;I was befuddled. The most energetic people in the world, doing absolutely nothing. I repeatedly asked them what was wrong. After an hour or so, my dad pulled me aside. He said that my Aunt Feli had passed away last night. My mind went for a loop, I was so confused. I thought that he was joking, so I replied “You’re lying, don’t mess with me like that.” and punched his shoulder softly while I chuckled. My dad quickly started tearing up and said, “There...
Chernobyl (chĬrnō´byēl) is the uninhibited city in north Ukraine, near the Belarus boundary, on the Pripyat River. Ten miles to the north, in the town of Pripyat, is the Chernobyl nuclear powerstation, site of the worst nuclear reactor disaster in history ("Chernobyl", Columbia Encyclopedia). To specify, On April 26, 1986, Unit Four of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor exploded in Ukraine, injuring human immune systems and the genetic structure of cells, contaminating soils and waterways. Nearly 7 tons of irradiated reactor fuel was released into the environment—roughly 340 million curies. Included in the release were radioactive elements with a half-life of 16 million years. Yet, we humans cannot defe...
I walked into the room on New Year’s Day and felt a sudden twinge of fear. My eyes already hurt from the tears I had shed and those tears would not stop even then the last viewing before we had to leave. She lay quietly on the bed with her face as void of emotion as a sheet of paper without the writing. Slowly, I approached the cold lifeless form that was once my mother and gave her a goodbye kiss.
Chernobyl was the greatest nuclear disaster of the 20th century. On April 26th, 1986, one of four nuclear reactors located in the Soviet Union melted down and contaminated a vast area of Eastern Europe. The meltdown, a result of human error, lapsed safety precautions, and lack of a containment vessel, was barely contained by dropping sand and releasing huge amounts of deadly radioactive isotopes into the atmosphere. The resulting contamination killed or injured hundreds of thousands of people and devastated the environment. The affects of this accident are still being felt today and will be felt for generations to come.
The third part of this book is the essential element of this form and function argument. It is entitled “Part Three: Amazed by Sadness”. This section of the novel explores the facts and takes a more serious and analytical tone about the incident. For example, one section within this part of the novel is entitled “About the Facts”. Vasily Nesterenko, the former director of the Institute for Nuclear Energy at the Belarussian Academy of Science tells about his reaction to the incident, and he includes more facts than we have seen thus far in the novel. He talks about how he tried to call the the First secretary of the Central Committee, but no one would listen to him. Desperately, he insisted that no one should be within 100 kilometers of Chernobyl, but his findings
Humans were a victims of the Chernobyl nuclear accident which affected their lifestyle and their health. People of Chernobyl were evacuated to clean and safe areas. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) (2006), there were 116 000 people who were evacuated from Chernobyl region to other safe areas in the summe...
It was the middle of the night when my mother got a phone call. The car ride was silent, my father had a blank stare and my mother was silently crying. I had no idea where we were headed but I knew this empty feeling in my stomach would not go away. Walking through the long bright hallways, passing through an endless amount of doors, we had finally arrived. As we
mental degradation. The mass production of goods, in manufacturing industries, more so has led to a lot of pollutants being released into the atmosphere. These pollutants continue to degrade the environment. There are several forms of pollutions that continue to be heavily experienced as a result of the activities of Multi-National Corporations. The two most adverse types of pollution are water pollution and air pollution. They affect a lot of the systems that are in play.
As I walked in to their bedroom, I found my mother sitting on the bed, weeping quietly, while my father lay on the bed in a near unconscious state. This sight shocked me, I had seen my father sick before, but by the reaction of my mother and the deathly look on my father’s face I knew that something was seriously wrong.
We lived in the town of Pripyat in Ukraine, once home to the families of the power plant’s workers, my home. The only home that I have ever known, loved, and deeply cherished. Little did we know we would have to leave everything life, memories, and friends. The officials said that everything would turn out okay, but it did not. We would never return.
On April26, 1986, the nuclear power plant was exploded in Chernobyl, Ukraine. At 1:23 AM, while everyone were sleeping, Reactor #4 exploded, and 40 hours later, all the city residence were forcefully moved to other cities, and they never return to their home. The Chernobyl disaster is ranked the worst nuclear accident. The Chernobyl nuclear power plant was ran by the Soviet Union central nuclear energy corporation. (International Atomic Energy Agency-IAEA, 2005)