'World has learnt nothing from Chernobyl'

RNW, 26 April 2011, by Margreet Strijbosch

(Photo: ANP)

Effects of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster will be evident for centuries.

An unsuccessful experiment with an emergency shut-down early in the morning of 26th April 1986 sealed the fate of the unsuspecting surroundings of Chernobyl, on the borders of White Russia. Reactor no. 4 of the complex - at that moment still the symbol of Soviet technology and socialist pride - melted, exploded and infected the atmosphere with a huge amount of radioactive material.

‘Nuclear rain’

The then Soviet authorities initially maintained a stiff upper lip. First reports of increased radioactive emanations came from Swedish researchers. The news spread like wildfire in Europe. But whilst, in the Netherlands, the cows were in the cowsheds and spinach was taken off the market , the 1st May parade in the Ukraine was, as always, exuberantly celebrated, says Tamara Smirnova, who was living in the neighbourhood of Chernobyl at the time of the accident.

‘1st May was the day of the workers and there was a special parade in each village. People were out on the streets when the nuclear rain came down on us. After one week people began sharing iodine out/with each other. Later we started realizing that it was really dangerous, but in that first week, the children played on the streets as usual.’

Death in the air

Gradually the scale of the disaster became clear and threw the - until now ignorant - masses into panic. Residents were evacuated. A 30-year old mother of her new-born son, Tamara considered being evacuated to another part of the Soviet Union. ‘Death was in the air everywhere’ she says about the unseen danger. ‘I learned then what anxiety really meant’.

Opinions vary about the exact effects of the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl. Even though the official death toll still stands at 50, there is a very high number of children in the area with cancer of the thyroid gland. In 2006 the World Health organization estimated that in the coming years some 4000 to 9000 people would die of the radiation effects. Environmental organization Greenpeace believed that even this figure would be increased tenfold.

Pragmatism

Yet 25 years later, the views on nuclear power are not only fuelled by anxiety, but also by pragmatism, says Dutch journalist Franka Hummels, who wrote the book ‘The Generator Generation’ about the effects of Chernobyl in the afflicted region. Immediately after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Ukrainian people declared their land to be a nuclear-free zone, but could not, at the same time, distance themselves from the nuclear power station because they had no alternative. It was only in 2001, under great pressure from Europe and the international community – that the remaining reactors in Chernobyl were closed.

Uninhabitable

In neighbouring White Russia plans were made for the building of a nuclear power station in the north west of the country. A sensitive ambition indeed, but one that was necessarily respected so as to be less dependent on Russian oil and gas in the future. The magnitude of the disaster was at the time rather more played down than exaggerated by the dictatorial regime of President Alexander Lukashenko, according to Hummels.

In the White Russian part of the forbidden zone, declared ‘uninhabitable for centuries’, by the United Nations, a repopulating policy is even now actively being carried out. New residents are being compensated for health risks, in the form of free housing, water and electricity.

Vulnerable spot

Ironically enough Ukrainians have been living in the Netherlands for 7 years, near to where the only nuclear power station is situated. "It's my fate", Tamara laughs bitterly. "I'd rather they hadn't built this nuclear reactor here. 25 years after the Chernobyl disaster - it's as if the world has learnt nothing from it!"

The general assumption was that the Chernobyl nuclear power station was soviet manufactured and thus not representative of risks elsewhere in the world. But the recent catastrophe in Fukushima has confronted us yet again with the risks of nuclear power.

‘We thought that the technology and safety in Japan would also be well thought through. I don't think that the situation in the Netherlands is any safer’ says Tamara Smirnova.

Just as the Chernobyl disaster, Fukushima, too, led to discussions in the Netherlands about nuclear power, but not to new conclusions. The present government wants the planned building of a new power plant, for the time being, to go through.

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