(*This history feature article was written by Ivan Dikov for Pax Glocalica's sister publication, ArchaeologyinBulgaria.com)

The world marks on April 26, 2018, the 32^th year since the Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster in the former Soviet Union, the worst catastrophe in the global history of nuclear energy, which in Communist Bulgaria was covered up from the public by the ruling regime of the Bulgarian Communist Party, at the time the staunchest satellite of Moscow.

Hiding the truth about the Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster from the Bulgarian people when it occurred at the end of April 1986, and, naturally, taking no measures to protect the population from the radiation while protecting the high party leadership is among the worst of the numerous heinous crimes of Bulgaria’s communist regime.

On April 26, 1986, reactor No. 4 of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Northern Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union, got damaged during a drill training its staff to terminate the nuclear reactor’s work in a time of emergence.

The resulting explosion blew up the reactor’s lid which weighed 1,200 metric tons, and led to the leakage of a huge amount of radioactive particles in the atmosphere.

The radioactive cloud emitted as a result of the Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster on April 26, 1986, passed over Eastern Europe, including Bulgaria.

However, the regime of the Bulgarian Communist Party and the then Bulgarian dictator Todor Zhivkov (in office 1954/56 – 1989) (formally known as the People’s Republic of Bulgaria, 1944/48 – 1989) deliberately kept the information about the nuclear catastrophe from the public, and only took measures to protect from the radiation only the most senior party functionaries and the staff of the armed forces.

Not counting the three then Soviet republics of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia, Bulgaria ranked fifth in terms of the degree of radioactive pollution following the Chernobyl Disaster, after Sweden, Finland, Austria, and Norway, reminds DeSeBg.com, a site run by Bulgarian investigative journalist Hristo Hristov who specializes in uncovering the secrets of the Bulgarian communist regime and its intelligence and secret police, the DS (“State Security”), the equivalent of the Soviet KGB.

However, in terms of the effective radiation exposure during the first year after the occurring of the Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster, Bulgaria ranks first.

“This is due to the communist regime hiding the information about the severe disaster in the USSR, which prevents [Bulgaria’s] population from taking even the most basic precautions,” Hristov points out…

Read the rest of this article on ArchaeologyinBulgaria website here

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