Mayak Factory, Russia

A terrifying story occurred in the city of Ozersk. One of the world's largest nuclear plants, Mayak, has been working there for several decades. In 1957, there was a major accident. It resulted in a leakage of about 100 tons of radioactive material into the environment. The huge territory has been subjected to contamination. Later, it became known as the East Ural radioactive trail. Its length was more than 300 km, and the width was between 5 and 10 km, respectively.

For decades, local authorities and plant employees hid from residents the fact of explosion. It became known to public only in 1980. At that time, only for rough estimates, major diseases affected more than 40 000 residents. In total, 217 settlements with population of 272 000 people have been contaminated as a result of the accident.

After the accident, about 200 people have died because of high radiation dose at the first ten days. During the entire period, 250 thousand people were affected. Today, the highest radioactivity is observed not only in the territory of the plant, but also off the coast of the river Techa. Drop of radioactive waste into the river started in Soviet times. One of the latest facts of waste norms violations at the Mayak was identified in 2005. This chemical plant had a great strategic importance for the country, so even after numerous accidents and violations its work wasn’t suspended. Next - Santa Susana Field Laboratory