Research at Chernobyl and Fukushima shows how radioactive materials move in the environment

Even decades after the Chernobyl disaster, damage to the containment structures risks radioactivity escaping into the environment. AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky

When nuclear accidents happen, many people imagine radiation spreading everywhere and lasting forever. The reality is more complex. Radioactive materials move, change and sometimes disappear faster than people expect.

The Chernobyl accident in 1986 and the Fukushima Daiichi accident in 2011 released radioactive materials into the air, soil and water around those two nuclear power plants. The general term for the materials that got released is “radionuclides.”