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Chernobyl occurred prior to the warming in relations that resulted from Gorbachev's reforms, so it is understandable that the Soviets perceived a significant th
by cocoablazing 10y ago
Chernobyl occurred prior to the warming in relations that resulted from Gorbachev's reforms, so it is understandable that the Soviets perceived a significant threat from admitting the accident occurred. Unlike Fukushima, Chernobyl slowly released radioactivity for days due to the fire. Initial Soviet assessments of the accident severity were optimistic. I'm not saying that they were right in delaying, but the fire was still burning and the atmospheric release ongoing when they publicly revealed it.
- topspin 10y agoThe Soviets also covered up Kyshtym in 1957, a cover up that lasted for three decades. Many officials in the West were complicit in that cover up, adopting extraordinary skepticism of the available evidence to discredit those that either knew or believed a major nuclear incident had occurred. One of the victims of that cover up in the West was Zhores A. Medvedev. He wrote a book (Nuclear Disaster in the Urals) in response to critics of his claims of a major nuclear disaster. The book is a truly fascinating survey of open sources of academic work published by Soviet researchers that reveals the incident indirectly; the papers (typically studies of the effect of contamination of various organisms; fish, plants, worms, deer, etc.) could only have been written if a large area of land had been heavily contaminated, and this subtlety was lost on the state censors, who were themselves not aware that Kyshtym had happened. Medvedev was eventually vindicated when the Soviets fessed up in the late '80s.
- bogomipz 10y agoOh I know but at a certain level you have to consider humanity and put political ideologies aside is what I meant.