The Radiation Was 400 Times Greater Than The Bomb Dropped On Hiroshima
There was so much radiation released at Chernobyl when the nuclear plant melted down that, were people to attempt to farm the ground, the food that they grow would be poisonous. However, the Soviet government continued to tell people that nothing was amiss and that the area was perfectly safe.
In fact, three months after the explosion, the government announced that food grown there was safe to eat. Anyone who ate food that was produced there would have immediately become sick from the high levels of radiation and would probably have died from its effects.