Social and economic impact of Chernobyl in Turkey

The radiological impact of the Chernobyl accident in terms of doses to individuals in the various countries covered a wide range. The specific features of the release of radioactive material from the Chernobyl accident, particularly its relatively large duration and altitude reached by the radioactive plume, caused a widespread distribution of activity across Europe. Meteorological conditions and wind regimes during the period of release were the contributing factors. The varying distances from the source of release and long duration of the release in different directions resulted in uneven ground and foodchain contamination. Also, variable meteorological situation, characterized by frequent and localized heavy precipitation contributed to uneven deposition differs sometimes by one or two orders of magnitude between localities situated few tens of kilometers apart. In these circumstances, the doses to the individuals of critical groups appeared to be higher than the average individual dose over whole population