The consequences were terrible: what disasters in Ukraine the USSR authorities kept silent about

The authorities of the Soviet Union had a habit of keeping silent for a long time about disasters that occurred on the territory of its republics.

This also affected Ukraine, where dozens of tragedies remained out of the public eye due to censorship and the authorities' desire to avoid panic.

The most famous is the Chernobyl accident, but the list of disasters is much longer. OBOZ.UA offers to find out which tragedies were hushed up by Soviet leaders for a long time.

The Soviet practice of concealing information about disasters had tragic consequences for many citizens. The lack of access to the truth, the concealment of real risks, and the non-disclosure of important data continue to affect the lives of Ukrainians even today.

The Kurenivka tragedy

One of the worst disasters in Kyiv was the breach of the Babyn Yar dam on March 13, 1961. A gigantic wave of liquid slurry flooded 30 hectares of the area, destroying industrial buildings, a kindergarten, hospitals, and private homes. In total, 145 people died during the tragedy, according to official figures, although the actual number is believed to be much higher. The authorities forbade reporting on the disaster, so most Ukrainians learned about it only later.

Cholera epidemic

In 1970, Odesa became the epicenter of a cholera outbreak. Within days of the first case, dozens of people were hospitalized and hundreds were isolated. The disease spread to neighboring regions, but the newspapers did not mention it, and information about the number of victims remains unknown.

The first nuclear explosion in Ukraine

The first nuclear explosion in Ukraine occurred long before the Chornobyl tragedy. This event, although classified by the Soviet authorities, had a significant impact on the environment and the health of people living near the explosion site.

It was an underground nuclear explosion that occurred in 1972 near the village of Khrestyshche. The purpose of the operation was to stop a fire at a gas field, but the experiment did not yield the expected result. A similar operation took place in 1979 at the Yunkom mine in Donetsk Oblast, where a radioactive cavity was formed. This area still poses a radiation hazard, especially after it was flooded in 2021 due to the cessation of water pumping.

The accident at Korystivka station

The Korystivka railway accident, which occurred on November 6, 1986, is one of the largest railway disasters in the history of Ukraine. Dozens of people died and many more were injured in a head-on collision between two passenger trains.

This tragedy shook the country and became the subject of numerous discussions and investigations. The crash was caused by the locomotive crew of one of the trains falling asleep, which led to a violation of traffic rules and a collision. The Soviet media remained silent about the collision of two passenger trains Kryvyi Rih-Kyiv and Kyiv-Donetsk at Korystivka station, which killed 44 people and injured more than 100 passengers, in order not to spoil the celebrations of the October Revolution.

The Chernobyl disaster

The Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident occurred on April 26, 1986. The explosion of the fourth reactor and a fire released a huge amount of radioactive substances into the atmosphere, which led to large-scale contamination of large areas of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia.

The Chornobyl disaster is one of the largest man-made disasters of the 20th century. During an experiment to test the safety system of the fourth power unit, a reactor exploded. The radioactive cloud spread over large areas of Europe, contaminating large areas of agricultural land and forests. Thousands of people were evacuated from the contaminated areas, and millions were exposed to radiation.

The consequences of the accident are still being felt today: increased disease rates, genetic mutations, and environmental problems.

The Soviet government hid the scale of the disaster for a long time, trying to maintain its authority and avoid panic among the population. Only a few days after the accident did the Soviet media report on the incident, but the scale of the disaster was significantly underestimated. The real truth about Chernobyl became known only after the collapse of the USSR.

Radioactive ampoule in Kramatorsk

Another tragedy hidden behind the Iron Curtain. The radioactive contamination in Kramatorsk is a little-known, but no less tragic event that took place in one of the city's panelized buildings between 1980 and 1989. This incident is a vivid example of how the Soviet system concealed information about man-made disasters and their consequences for human health.

The cause of the contamination was an ampoule of cesium-137, a powerful source of gamma radiation, forgotten in the wall of the house. For several years, the residents of the building, especially those who lived in apartments located near the radiation source, were exposed to significant radiation. This resulted in the illness and premature death of several people, mostly young people.

As in the case of Chornobyl, the Soviet authorities concealed information about radiation incidents in order not to cause panic and damage their image.

The radiation monitoring system in the USSR was underdeveloped, which allowed such incidents to go unnoticed for a long time.

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