At least 22 villages were exposed to radiation from the disaster, with a total population of around 10.000 people evacuated. Some were evacuated after a week but it took almost 2 years for evacuations to occur at other sites. It was only in 1976 that dissident Zhores Medvedev made the nature and extent of the disaster known to the world. In 1992 a study conducted by the Soviet Institute of Biophysics found that 8.015 people had died within the preceding 32 years as a result of the accident.