Inside Chernobyl's Sarcophagus

The Chernobyl disaster triggered the release of substantial amounts of radiation into the atmosphere in the form of both particle and gaseous radioisotopes, and is the most significant unintentional release of radiation into the environment to date. The Chernobyl disaster released as much as 400 times the radioactive contamination of the Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.


According to wikpedia, the inhalation dose (internal dose) for the public (during the time between the accident occurring and their evacuation from the area) in what is now the 30 km evacuation zone around the plant has been estimated (based ground deposition of 137Cs) to be between 3 and 150 mSv {between a 1 in 6666.67 and a 1 in 133.33 chance of a fatal cancer assuming the ICRP risk factor of a 5% of a fatal cancer per Sv of exposure} for adults (depending on the distance from the reactor and the day of evacuation) and for one year old children a dose estimate of between 10 and 700 mSv {between a 1 in 2000 and a 1 in 28.57 chance of fatal cancer} has been made.[1] Thyroid doses for adults were between 20 and 1000 mSv, while for the one year old infants these were higher at 20 to 6000 mSv. For those who left at an early stage in the accident the internal dose due to inhalation was 8 to 13 times higher than the external dose due to gamma/beta emitters. For those who remained until later (day 10 or later) the inhalation dose was 50 to 70% higher than the dose due to external exposure. The majority of the dose was due to 131I (circa 40%), tellurium and rubidium isotopes (circa 20 to 30% for Rb and Te).


The ingestion doses in this same group of people have also been estimated using the caesium activity per unit of area, isotope ratios, average day of evacuation, intake rate of milk and green vegetables and what is known about the transfer of radioactivity via plants/animals to humans. For adults the dose has been estimated to be between 3 and 180 mSv while for the one year old infants a dose of between 20 and 1300 mSv has been estimated. Again the majority of the dose was due to 131I and the external dose was much smaller than the internal dose due to the radioactivity in the diet.