[NukeNet] Belarus Brought To It's Knees By Chernobyl

[Bill Smirnow]

   http://commondreams.org/views01/0426-05.htm

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            Published on Thursday, April 26, 2001 in The Irish Times
            15th Anniversary of Chernobyl
            Belarus Brought to Its Knees by 'Invisible Enemy
            For Belarus the problems are only beginning. Thyroid cancer
rates have risen by 2,400 per cent since the explosion.

            by Eugene Cahill

            At 1.23 a.m. on April 26th, 1986, an explosion occurred in the
No. 4 reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine. Some 190 tons of
highly radioactive uranium and graphite were blasted into the atmosphere.
            The radioactive cloud released from the burning reactor
travelled north into the neighbouring country of Belarus. It then moved east
over western Russia and west across Europe.


            The fallout from the disaster has directly affected over nine
million people in Belarus, Ukraine and western Russia. The people of these
countries were exposed to radioactivity 90 times greater than that released
by the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The UN has declared the disaster the
worst environmental catastrophe in history.

            It is the country of Belarus which has suffered, and continues
to suffer, most from the disaster: 70 per cent of the radiation has fallen
on its land and people.

            Mr Vladislav Ostapenko, head of Belarus's Radiation Medicine
Institute, told a recent press conference that "science cannot yet
completely assess the consequences of the Chernobyl accident, but it is
plain that a demographic catastrophe has occurred in our country.

            "We are now seeing genetic changes, especially among those who
were less than six years of age when the accident happened and they were
subjected to radiation. These people are now starting families."

            Medical research has shown that radioactive elements (primarily
caesium 137 and iodine 131) cross the placental barrier from mother to
foetus, contaminating each new generation. Faced with soaring levels of
infertility and genetic changes, the gene pool of the Belarussian people is
now under threat.

            The rates of thyroid cancer have increased by 2,400 per cent in
the 15 years since the disaster and this figure is expected to continue to
rise. There has been a 1,000 per cent increase in suicides in the
contaminated zones and a 250 per cent increase in congenital birth
deformities.

            With 99 per cent of the land of Belarus contaminated to varying
degrees, the people of this stricken country are forced to live, eat, drink
and breathe radiation.

            Ms Adi Roche, executive director of the Chernobyl Children's
Project, which has initiated 14 aid programmes for the stricken regions, has
travelled on many humanitarian aid convoys to Belarus. She has found it to
be "a country on its knees, struggling to fight against the invisible enemy
of radiation, an enemy that is slowly destroying its people".

            The Chernobyl disaster has financially crippled Belarus. It has
cost the country 25 per cent of its annual national budget and it is
estimated that by 2015 the fallout from the accident will have cost Belarus
$235 billion.

            Because there is no international law governing an accident such
as that which occurred at Chernobyl, Belarus has received no compensation
for the damage to it from either Ukraine or Russia.

            In a vicious and toxic cycle, the country cannot afford to
minimise the effects of the disaster because it is so economically crippled
as a direct result of it.

            Within the world's most radioactive environment, some 2,000
towns and villages lie eerily silent and empty. These towns were evacuated
in the weeks and months following the disaster because of the extremely high
levels of radioactivity.

            Yet, in a very worrying development, the Belarussian authorities
are attempting to change the existing laws relating to the protection of
citizens suffering from the disaster to reduce the financial burden on the
state.

            Prof Nesterenko is a Belarussian scientist who carries out
independent research into the effects of the contaminated land. His research
is crucial to all aid work relating to the disaster carried out in Belarus.

            He has warned that the authorities are propagating a return to
living in contaminated zones instead of giving objective information to the
population about the dangers to health of living in contaminated areas.

            In spite of such a large-scale tragedy, the issue has been
largely forgotten or ignored by the international community and the voices
of the victims remain largely unheard.

            Fifteen years after the disaster - at a time when its full
consequences have not yet peaked - there is a growing complacency within the
international community about it.

            There is an urgent and vital need for the Chernobyl issue to be
placed back at the top of the international agenda.

            Most of the aid to the affected regions is collected and
distributed by international non-governmental organisations. If the problems
are to be correctly tackled, it is imperative that increased financial
commitments be given by UN member-states to the relief effort. Every
government and every country has a crucial role to play.

            Although the Chernobyl power plant was finally closed down last
December, it is by no means the end of the problem. An omnipresent threat of
nuclear apocalypse still hangs over much of Europe.

            Within the last few weeks, a former director of security
services in the Chernobyl region, Mr Valentine Kupny, has warned that
radiation is still seeping from the entombed reactor.

            Speaking in last week's German weekly Focus, he alerted people
to the fact that the steel casing entombing the nuclear reactor was
crumbling and in imminent danger of collapse. When this casing collapses,
much of what will happen will depend on the wind.

            Mr Kupny has said that nobody knows exactly what is happening
inside the reactor. "In September 1996 we recorded the last atomic chain
reaction but it is very possible that something is happening now. We don't
know."

            Mr Kupny was dismissed from his post shortly after his interview
for the article. Many people do not want to hear the truth.

            Isn't it about time that we did?

            Eugene Cahill is press officer of the Chernobyl Children's
Project.

            © 2001 ireland.com

            ###

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