Kyshtym Disaster

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In 1957 a tank of liquid, highly radioactive waste left from reprocessing nuclear fuel, exploded in a region of the Soviet Union called Kyshtym in the Ural Mountains of Siberia. The accident was kept secret for several decades, but we now know that it was at a secret nuclear reprocessing site called Mayak. This accident resulted in a regional disaster and a radioactive cloud that contaminated more than 300 square miles… many people received very high radiation exposures, some suffered acute radiation syndrome. Because of secrecy in the nuclear establishment it is not clear what exactly happened but estimates are at least 200 people died of “excess” cancer and scores of villages and towns were permanently abandoned due to the sever radioactive contamination.[1]


The Kyshtym Disaster was an accident in the world's largest nuclear complex Mayak in Russia and is today one of the most radioactively contaminated places in the world. Until Chernobyl, Mayak was the site of the worst nuclear disaster in history. Unlike Chernobyl, it has received very little attention. The Mayak nuclear facility, until recently deleted from all Russian maps, is the size of a small city and has been used to manufacture plutonium for nuclear weapons and reprocess nuclear reactor fuel for over 50 years. Since the 1950s, accidental and deliberate releases of radiation have exposed over a quarter of a million people living around the plant to high levels of radiation. Thousands have died and many more live with its debilitating legacy: sickness, sterility and poverty. Now the Russian Government is considering plans to import nuclear waste to Mayak from around the world.[2]


Further information


  1. extracted from a call-out for the 2010 International Mayak Action Day by Mary Olson, Nuclear Information and Resource Service, maryo AT nirs.org
  2. http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/media/press-releases/half-life-living-with-effects-of-nuclear-waste as at April 3rd, 2010