Recently in Evacuations Category

Thousands of people were evacuated from their homes in the aftermath of the 1986 disaster at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. The following information includes legal orders for the evacuations and the official Soviet counts of the number of people that were evacuated:

• Pripyat and the nearby village Yanov: Organized evacuation of Pripyat (49,360) and the railway station Yanov (254) from 2:00 - 5:00 PM on April 27, 1986, in accordance with a decision by the Government Commission of the Council of Ministers of the USSR.
• On May 3, 1986 from 9:00 AM - 9:00 PM, in accordance with order № -09 dated May 2, 1986 from the Chief of Civil Defense and Chairman of the Executive Committee of Kiev, organized evacuations from the 10- and 30-kilometer zone around the Chernobyl Plant of 7,392 people from 15 settlements.
• On May 3, 4 and 7, 1986, another 44 settlements from the 30-kilometer zone around the Chernobyl Plant and some areas near it.
• From May 14 to August 16, 1986, in accordance with decision № -70 from the Speical Group of the Communist Party of Ukraine and decrees № -40 / 1, 49 and 64 from the head of Civil Defense and Chairman of the Executive Committee of Kiev, another 15 locations were evacuated (8 from the Kiev region and 7 from the Zhitomir region).
• Through mid-August 1986, 90,784 people from 81 settlements in Ukraine were evacuated. During the same period, another 25,000 people were evacuated from 107 settlements in Belarus.
• On June 28, 1989, the USSR Council of Ministers, after further testing of the contaminated areas, issued order №-244-C containing procedures and conditions for the relocation of additional settlements in the Zhitomir and Kiev regions due to soil contamination in excess of permissible limits. This set in motion a period of relocation for residents of the zone of unconditional (mandatory) resettlement.
  • The first stage of this order's implementation was resolution № -333 from the USSR Council of Ministers, dated December 30, 1989 that provided for the resettlement of approximately 3,200 residents from 12 settlements in the Narodichi area and 4 settlements in the Polesie area.