Kiev, Ukraine
The 1986 nuclear accident at the Chernobyl power plant was not the health catastrophe it was expected to be, a U.N. report said this week. Some 600,000 people were exposed to fallout from the meltdown, and at the time, experts predicted that 4,000 would eventually die from thyroid cancer or radiation sickness. But as of this year, fewer than 50 people had died from those causes, and most of those were plant workers who succumbed in the first few months. While several thousand children developed thyroid cancer, 99 percent of them survived. An expected surge in birth defects also never appeared. According to the report, the most daunting health problem in the wake of the accident has been the depression and anxiety caused by victims’ false belief that they were doomed to illness.
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