Yesterday Marked the 36th Anniversary of the Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster

Some memories just stick with you, regardless of how long ago or far away they happened. 

In the 1980's, one of the undeniably biggest news stories occurred with the fire at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in what was then the Soviet Union. It now lies officially in Ukrainian territory, although it exchanged hands a couple of times during the recent war.

This was a memorable event that happened while I was still in the 6th grade, as I recall, on the verge of heading to Macopin Middle School for 7th grade later that same year. Ronald Reagan was the American president, and Mikhael Gorbachev was the Soviet Premier. 

Since then, I have heard some theories that, in fact, this disaster was more or less what unraveled the Soviet Union, making what would happen within a few years possible. Not entirely sure on my end, although I think there may indeed be something to that, although I think it was a number of things combined. Still, this one felt a bit like one of the major cracks that showed the vulnerability and mistakes, when what the Soviet Union was clearly going to great lengths to keep this whole thing a secret. But it obviously came out soon enough, when the air quality in nearby countries suddenly plunged. Before long, the Soviet Union was basically forced to admit this accident had taken place.

Also, everything that they did initially actually made matters worse. That includes the secrecy, and the pouring of water atop the fire in order to try and cool it. That water seeped underground and threatened to not only affect the drinking water, but actually possibly to go to make much of the entire European continent uninhabitable. 

For anyone who has not yet seen it, I would highly recommend watching the Chernobyl miniseries, which shows how almost everything that everyone in authority at the time did only made matters worse, every step of the way. They literally wound up flirting with this being arguably the biggest tragedy in world history. And it remains one of the biggest and most haunting events in world history.

It happened on this day yesterday, 36 years ago.