Chornobyl Disaster: facts and figures  

• Chornobyl explosion is equivalent to 500 bombs dropped on Hiroshima
• 50 mln. curie make the aggregate fall out of the radioactive substances
• 2,594,071 Ukrainians were affected by the Chornobyl catastrophe, 428,000 of them are children
• 504,117 Ukrainians who were affected by the Chornobyl accident died in 1987-2004, among them 34,499 liquidators (disaster relief workers) and 6,769 children
• 48,400 sq. km territory and 2218 settlements in Ukraine have been contaminated by radiation
• Ukrainian experts estimate the economic damage to the country at US $179 billion up to 2015
• The Chornobyl Exclusion Zone covers 2,600 sq. km
• 1 million cubic meters of radioactive substance are located at the interim storage facilities in the Exclusion Zone
• An equivalent of $6 billion was spent to build the current sarcophagus over the 4^th power-generating unit
• $1.4 billion is the estimated cost of the new confinement (Shelter Implementation Plan) to turn the installation into an environmentally safe system
• 40,000 cubic meters of solid radioactive waste have been stored at the Chornobyl NPS
• 4.4 million hectares of Ukraine’s forests were contaminated by radionuclides as a result of the accident at the Chornobyl NPS (40 percent of the country's forested area)
• 5,000 tons of protective materials were thrown down into reactor from April 27 to May 10, 1986
• Chornobyl explosion was classified as a level 7 event (the maximum classification) on the International Nuclear Event Scale