- Chernobyl at 25: Today marks 25 years since Chernobyl blew up, plagued as it was by a mixture of poor decision-making by its chief operator, Anatoly Diatlov, as well as a critically flawed reactor design. All these years later, officials and experts still debate the health effects resulting from the crisis; the UN concluded about 6,000 youths would/have suffered thyroid cancer as a result, while other scientists and organizations insist the magnitude of the problem is much greater, in the tens of thousands. Now, the containment sarcophagus around Chernobyl is decaying, to boot, so the building of “the shelter,” an enormous arch that would cover the entire plant, becomes more important than ever for the surrounding areas. source