New estimates say around 4,000 people will die from the effects of the 1986 accident at the Chernobyl reactor in the Ukraine, which sent a radioactive cloud across Europe. Most of the dead so far are emergency workers exposed immediately after the disaster. The new figures come in a report from the Chernobyl Forum, set up by a number of agencies including the IAEA, the World Health Organisation (WHO), a number of UN bodies and the governments of Belarus, the Russian Federation and the Ukraine to look at the impact of Chernobyl.

WHO news release, 5 September 2005 and Chernobyl webpages.