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However, problems persist in some rural areas of the former Soviet Union with small private farms where dairy cows are grazing in pastures that are neither ploughed nor fertilized. Today, the levels of caesium-137 in agricultural food products from Chernobyl-affected areas are generally below national and international action levels. In the past decade, the radioactivity levels have still gone down, but much more slowly.
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This direct deposition on plants was of most concern during the first two months after the accident since radioactive iodine decays quickly.Īfter this early phase of deposition, an increasingly important concern was plant contamination through absorption of radioactive materials, such as caesium and strontium, from the soil through their roots.ĭuring the first few years after the accident, the levels of radioactive materials in agricultural plants and animals decreased quickly because of factors such as weathering and decay. More.ģ.2 To what extent have agricultural areas been contaminated?Īfter the accident, the deposition of radioactive iodine contaminated agricultural plants, grazing animals, and thus the milk produced in parts of Belarus, Russia, Ukraine and some other parts of Europe. Levels of radiation measured in the air in most urban areas are now the same as before the accident, except above undisturbed soil in gardens and parks in some settlements of Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine where they remain higher. However, this has caused the secondary contamination of sewage systems and sludge storage. Since then, the surface contamination in urban areas has decreased because of the effects of wind, rain, traffic, street washing and cleanup. Other urban areas have received different levels of deposition, and their residents have received, and are still receiving, some amount of external radiation.Īfter the accident, radioactive materials were deposited mostly on open surfaces such as lawns, parks, roads, and building roofs, for instance by contaminated rain. However, their residents were evacuated quickly so that they avoided being exposed to high levels of external radiation. Substantial amounts of radioactive materials were deposited in the urban areas near the power plant. Radioisotopes emitted during the Chernobyl accident). Plutonium and its decay products (in particular americium-241) will remain in the environment over a longer term of hundreds to thousands of years though at low levels (see half-lives of For the decades to come, the most important pollutant will be caesium-137 followed by strontium-90. Because many of the most significant radioisotopes have short half-lives in the range of hours or days, most have decayed away by now. The half-life of radioactive material is the time taken for half the amount initially present to decay. Also, because radioactive strontium and plutonium particles are heavier than many other radioactive particles, they were deposited within 100 km of the destroyed reactor. For example, radioactive deposits were larger in areas where it was raining when the contaminated air masses passed.
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Over 70 % of this area lies in the three most affected countries, Belarus, Russia and Ukraine though the radioactive material was distributed unevenly.
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More than 200 000 km 2 of Europe were contaminated above the level of 37 kBq/m 2 of caesium-137 1. The most significant radioisotopes released were iodine-131, caesium-137, strontium-90 and plutonium radioisotopes (see table on radioisotopes released). Deposition of radioactive caesium in Europe as a resultįor 10 days following the April 26 explosion, the ruptured Chernobyl reactor continued to release major quantities of radioactive substances, amounting to a total of about 14 EBq.