Chernobyl: 40 Years On

Old Scars, New Wounds: Forty years after the Chernobyl disaster of 26 April 1986, Green Cross Switzerland pauses to reflect on this turning point in the history of humanity, whilst also looking to the future of the most severely affected regions.

Looking Back

Many people today have good reasons to doubt that humanity can collectively learn from history. At Green Cross Switzerland, we remain committed to this ambition, for it has been the foundation of our organisation’s work for over thirty years.

What lessons can we draw today from the most devastating accident in the history of nuclear power?

In pursuit of a supposedly great benefit, human beings tend to take foreseeable and significant risks, which all too often end in catastrophe — one of our own making. The certainty of being able to control potentially highly dangerous technologies to 100% has proved illusory in the case of nuclear energy.

The accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant (NPP) demonstrated in dramatic fashion how fatal it can be to underestimate technical risks, ignore warning signs, and subordinate safety to political or economic objectives. Years before the disaster, the Soviet secret and security service — the KGB — had knowledge of numerous risks and deficiencies. Yet these highly sensitive findings were kept secret and almost nothing was done.

Quite the contrary: eyewitness Nikolai Isaev recalls this period of false security and false happiness. He worked at the time in the chemical department of the power plant and lived with his family in the nearby city of Pripyat. Immediately after the accident, he was involved in the clean-up operations for more than five years. Today, having fled the war in Ukraine, he lives in Geneva. He describes his perception of life in the region before 26 April 1986 as follows: “In short: life was good, and nothing suggested anything terrible was coming — least of all the Chernobyl disaster.”

The RBMK reactors used at Chernobyl were regarded as powerful and relatively inexpensive to build, yet they carried considerable safety risks.

Safety was indeed improved in the wake of the Chernobyl disaster. It is nonetheless remarkable that seven of the seventeen RBMK reactors ever put into operation are still running today. Despite the (well-known) scale of the catastrophe, the Soviet government brought Blocks 1 to 3 back online. And even after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Chernobyl continued to operate. It was not until December 2000 that the last reactor was finally shut down.

Forty years ago, on 26 April 1986, at 1:23 in the morning, the explosion and meltdown in Reactor No. 4 finally occurred. During a test, the reactor entered an unstable state. Within seconds, power surged uncontrollably and explosions exposed the reactor core. The graphite it contained caught fire and burned for several days — releasing vast quantities of radioactive material that spread rapidly.

Nikolai Isaev reports that in the machine hall, shortly after the explosion, he could already see graphite from the reactor — a clear indication of the scale of the destruction. The full gravity of the situation was not yet recognised at that point, or was not openly communicated.

The worst-affected regions were not only present-day Ukraine, but also Belarus and parts of Russia. A significant proportion of the radioactive fallout was deposited over Belarus due to weather conditions at the time — a fact that continues to shape the daily lives of many people there to this day.

Nikolai Isaev recalls the first hours after the explosion: while soldiers in protective suits were already moving through the streets of Pripyat taking radiation measurements, many residents were still outside and children were playing in the open air. This simultaneity of normality and invisible danger felt utterly surreal.

The first victims were already being mourned in the early morning hours. The total number of people whose lives were claimed by the accident has remained disputed to this day. The same is true of the number of illnesses caused by radiation.

What is clearer is this: hundreds of thousands of people lost their homes. Many of them initially assumed they would be away for just a few days — but never returned. In total, around 350,000 people had to be resettled in the years following the disaster. Among them were the roughly 50,000 residents of Pripyat, a city founded in 1970 that had been thriving at the time. The power plant was the main employer for its inhabitants. Today, Pripyat is a ghost town — a monument and a warning.

The further consequences and costs were wide-ranging and continue to be felt in part to this day. They range from immediate and clearly visible damage to long-term effects that are difficult to measure:

Deaths and acute illnesses (in particular radiation sickness)
Decommissioning, securing, decontamination, construction of the sarcophagus and a double protective shell, continuous and costly monitoring across generations
Long-term health consequences such as thyroid cancer; health and social programmes for the affected population
Psychological trauma and stigmatisation
Ongoing welfare support for those affected (liquidators, evacuees)
Severe and lasting environmental damage, loss of agricultural production and local economic vitality, economically weakened or structurally marginalised regions
Demographic effects (population exodus, declining birth rates)
Political and systemic costs (e.g. loss of public trust)

Depending on the methodology used, the economic and financial damage of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster from 1986 to the present day (2026) is estimated at roughly 180 to over 600 billion Swiss francs. Even forty years on, these costs continue to grow.

Ongoing costs include, for example, expenditure on securing the site, decommissioning, waste management, monitoring of radioactively contaminated areas, and health and social support for those suffering from late effects. To this day, the site is continuously monitored and maintained by staff working in shifts. This will remain necessary for a long time to come.

Yet even today, many people continue to suffer from the health consequences of the disaster, as the example of Nikolai Isaev illustrates. Officially recognised as a Chernobyl invalid, he suffers from numerous conditions. He is currently still receiving treatment for heart problems (angina pectoris and ischaemia), radiation-induced damage to the retina, and type 2 diabetes. He has also had his prostate removed and suffers from hay fever. His wife has breast cancer and thyroid cancer. Many of Isaev’s former colleagues and former residents of Pripyat suffer from similar or identical conditions.

It was against the backdrop of all these grave consequences that Green Cross Switzerland was founded in 1993/94 and our SOCMED programme (“Social and Medical Care and Education”) was established. Owing to the collaboration with Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mikhail Gorbachev, our foundation initially focused on projects in the former Soviet Union and, in particular, on the Chernobyl disaster. The SOCMED programme was established in Belarus in 1995, in Russia in 1998, and in Ukraine in 2000. In the context of the Chernobyl disaster, the programme aims to achieve a lasting improvement in the living conditions of the most severely affected people, particularly children and young people.

The therapeutic camps formed a cornerstone of the SOCMED programme. They were built around a combination of medical, psychological, and social support. In these camps, children and young people with health impairments were cared for and taught by doctors, therapists, teachers, and educators. Alongside medical examinations and nutritious meals, social activities were organised to foster creativity, environmental awareness, and a sense of community.

Looking Ahead

Today, it is above all the economic, psychological, and social consequences of the disaster that remain at the forefront of concern for the population of the affected regions. Moreover, the lives of people in Ukraine — particularly in those areas still most severely affected by Chernobyl — are overshadowed by the ongoing war.

The international community continues to monitor the situation with close attention. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has maintained a continuous on-the-ground presence since the start of the war in Ukraine, in order to oversee the safety of nuclear facilities and alert to emerging risks.

The war in Ukraine makes clear that the risks of nuclear energy are not solely technical in nature. In armed conflicts, nuclear installations themselves become potential sources of danger — whether through direct attack or through power outages that can jeopardise the cooling of reactors.

Since the outbreak of war, the IAEA has recorded numerous safety-related incidents at Ukrainian nuclear facilities. In February 2025, a combat drone tore a hole in the shell of the Chernobyl sarcophagus. Fortunately, this had no effect on radiation levels, but the IAEA warned that prompt and comprehensive repairs were urgently needed. At present, two critical tasks — the containment of radioactive materials and the safe preparation of the decommissioning of unstable structures — can only be carried out incompletely.

Forty years after the Chernobyl disaster, vast areas remain uninhabitable due to radioactive contamination. Many communities continue to face economic hardship and limited prospects for the future. For younger generations in particular, this often means a lack of opportunities and the prospect of leaving.

With our solar programme, we are making an important contribution towards easing the burden of the conflict, as well as helping to shape the future for the people living there — especially younger and future generations.

Why is expanding solar energy a priority measure? For many people, electricity supply has become their greatest concern.

The many war-related power cuts have left Ukraine literally shivering through cold winters. But even now, the electricity supply remains one of the greatest sources of uncertainty in daily life. People are frequently forced to take shelter in air-raid bunkers. If the power also fails there, the situation worsens still further. This is particularly true for the most vulnerable: children, elderly people, the sick, and people with disabilities.

“Some children become frightened immediately. They have experienced explosions. For them, darkness means danger,” says Svitlana Ludanyk, the head of a nursery school in Horodnia.

To help as many people as possible get through power outages, we install solar panels in public facilities such as schools, nurseries, and hospitals. Combined with battery storage systems, these provide a reliable electricity supply for the most pressing needs. In crisis situations, this can make a critical difference — for medical care, the operation of emergency shelters, and the daily lives of families.

To ensure the solar programme achieves the greatest possible impact, we are pursuing the following complementary measures:

Circular financing through non-profit solar funds: a portion of the savings generated by the solar electricity produced flows into non-profit funds. These resources will be used in future to equip further public facilities with solar panels.
Awareness-raising and knowledge-sharing: facilities fitted with solar panels hold information events. The aim is to ensure that as many people and businesses as possible are informed about the benefits of solar energy.

Alongside electricity supply, psychological wellbeing remains a central concern. An important focus of our work is therefore the psychological support programme, which now has around 2,000 participants — the great majority of them children and young people — and which we are continually expanding.

Chernobyl is not a closed chapter of history: it shapes our present. That is precisely why it remains essential not only to look back, but to provide concrete responses to the challenges of today. For Green Cross Switzerland, this means acting where the consequences are still being felt, and creating prospects for the future.

In today’s world — shaped by crises, wars, and great risks — it is more important than ever to learn from Chernobyl and act accordingly.

Sources & Further Information:

Background and scientific context

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11896848/

https://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/areas-of-work/chernobyl.html

https://www.who.int/news-room/questions-and-answers/item/radiation-the-chernobyl-accident

https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/appendices/rbmk-reactors

https://preparecenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/WHO-Health-Effects-Report_9241594179_eng.pdf

https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/chernobyl-s-legacy-health-environmental-and-socio-economic-impacts-and-recommendations-to-thegovernments-of-belarus-the-russian-federation-and-ukraine

Costs of the disaster

Die folgenden Quellen zeigen unterschiedliche methodische Ansätze zur Schätzung der wirtschaftlichen Kosten, weshalb die Angaben variieren:

https://www.un.org/fr/desa/statement-round-table-discussion-identifying-and-mitigating-long-term