They have lived through one disaster, they say, and they can live through another.
Chernobyl
When scientists first made plans for nuclear power plants, a lot of people thought that this would be the best way to make electricity in the future. It was clean and safe, and it did not make big changes in the land around the power plant. Later people began to see that it was not so easy. Nuclear power plants could be very dangerous places, and governments had to spend millions of dollars to make them safe.
Before April 1986. not many people outside the Ukraine knew anything about the town called Chernobyl. But since that time it has become a name that millions of people know. on 26 April 1986, there was a terrible nuclear accident at Chernobyl.
On that night, a test at the nuclear power plant went wrong. Part of the power plant got very hot, and there was a big explosion. Radioactive material went out of the power plant and up into the air, and it travelled across northern Europe.
Thirty-one people died at the time of the accident, but many more died later because the radioactive material made them ill. Some of them were people who helped to clean up after the accident. How many people have died because of Chernobyl? Perhaps thousands, perhaps tens of thousands we can't be sure. But it is sure that many more people will die in the future because of problems that began at the time of the disaster. More and more people are becoming ill, especially with cancer. Many people had to leave their homes -116,000 after the accident, and another 210,000 people between 1990 and 1995. Many people feel worried and about what afraid will happen to them in the future.