Chernobyl voices: Personal Stories of the Nuclear Accident

Started by Sportsdude, Apr 21 06 08:32

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Sportsdude

Chernobyl voices: Vladimir Usatenko - Liquidator


Vladimir Usatenko
Engineer and former member of Ukraine's parliament
Conscripted to work on the Chernobyl sarcophagus

When the Chernobyl catastrophe occurred, the first report was incomprehensible to me, because of the over-confident tone adopted by the country's leaders. I quickly understood that something awful had happened, something beyond comprehension.  When I was conscripted, it was not as a spetgwpdt, but as raw labour for use in the most contaminated areas.
There were very many cases where we simply did not want to do the work - we saved ourselves by destroying the video cameras they used to control us

Most of us doing this work were very experienced, highly qualified workers - while the people in charge were simply professional leaders, who had never done anything with their hands and had little understanding of what needed to be done. Many of the tasks they tried to explain to us simply did not make sense.Time of war
There were very many cases where we simply did not want to do the work. We thought it was pointless, and we saved ourselves by destroying the video cameras they used to control us.  Then for a long period we just did nothing, and found places where there was some defence from the radioactivity, which preserved for us at least some chances of life in future.

We could not refuse the work, because the military prosecutor was watching us closely and we were under military law. And it was in reality a time of war.  Later I was elected to the Supreme Soviet (parliament).  In 1994, I proudly announced in parliament a concept for the regulation of nuclear safety and the management of the nuclear industry in Ukraine. Out of this came a number of laws placed restrictions on nuclear energy.  The main principle of these laws was to make it impossible to bequeath the consequences of exploiting these technologies to future generations. Everything should be resolved during the life cycle of each nuclear installation.  If you build it, you should make it fully safe within its life cycle.  When the installation closes, you should already have the financial mechanisms for cleaning up after yourself. 

Supermarket  Unfortunately the government does not yet understand that these laws must be put into effect.  For me Chernobyl was a fantastic lesson, a huge school, where I learned to understand people.  In the end I understood that in reality, our world is a big supermarket where you can do what you want, if you do not stop to think that the cash register is located near the exit. It's not in vain that the sarcophagus is in fact shaped like an old shop's cash register.  Everyone should understand that everything will end with a sarcophagus just like this one - and that is the best case scenario - if we continue unthinkingly with our existing, absolutely ineffective ways of using and producing energy.
"We can't stop here. This is bat country."

Sportsdude

 [TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=629 border=0] [TBODY] [TR] [TD colSpan=3] [DIV class=mxb] [DIV class=sh]Chernobyl voices: Hanna Semenenko - still lives in the area[/DIV][/DIV][/TD][/TR] [TR] [TD vAlign=top width=416][FONT size=2][!-- S BO --][!-- S IIMA --] [img alt="Hanna Semenenko" hspace=0 src="vny!://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41579000/jpg/_41579408_hannasemenenko416.jpg" width=416 border=0] [/DIV][BR clear=all][!-- E IIMA --] [FONT size=3]Hanna Semenenko, 78
Resident of Chernobyl zone village, Ilyintsi
Evacuated to Yahotin, 160km away, but went back
[/FONT] [FONT size=3]Oh God, how they tricked us! They said they were taking us away for three days and they took us to the end of the earth. We handed over everything to the authorities, cows, calves, pigs. We left everything behind. We took nothing with us but our souls. [/FONT] [FONT size=3]I spent the winter in Yahotin and came back again in the spring. [/FONT] [!-- S IBOX --] [TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=208 align=right border=0] [TBODY] [TR] [TD width=5][img height=1 alt="" hspace=0 src="vny!://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/shared/img/o.gif" width=5 border=0][/TD] [TD class=sibtbg]  [DIV class=mva][img height=13 alt="" src="vny!://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/img/v3/start_quote_rb.gif" width=24 border=0] Officials come and check us, they check our food and our clothes - there is nowhere as clean as here! [img height=13 alt="" src="vny!://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/img/v3/end_quote_rb.gif" width=23 align=right border=0][BR clear=all][/DIV][/DIV][/TD][/TR][/TBODY][/TABLE][!-- E IBOX --][FONT size=3]There was nothing there but steppe - here we have rivers and forests. So many of our young people have died there. [/FONT] [FONT size=3]I wouldn't go back, I would rather die. [/FONT] [FONT size=3]My brother lived here in the first years after the accident. His daughter married and had a child, a boy as healthy as an oak tree. They lived here for a long time before they moved. What kind of radiation do you call that? [/FONT] [FONT size=3]Ageing villagers [/FONT] [FONT size=3]Officials come and check us, they check our food and our clothes. There is nowhere as clean as here! [/FONT]

[/FONT][/TD][/TR][/TBODY][/TABLE] They just deceived us, drove people to the ends of the earth, out of sight. Where is the radiation? They took us to Yahotin where radiation levels are higher than here.

 We have electricity, thank God, and I get water nearby. We grow potatoes, cabbages and tomatoes, and mobile shops visit us twice a week.  There are 36 people in the village. One lives at one end, another at the other. We see each other when they bring our pensions, or when the shop comes. Otherwise, no-one really walks around. People who live here are old like me, or older. There are a couple who are 90 or more. Tomorrow they may no longer be here.

"We can't stop here. This is bat country."

Sportsdude

 [TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=629 border=0] [TBODY] [TR] [TD colSpan=3] [DIV class=mxb] [DIV class=sh]Chernobyl voices: Oleg Ryazanov - works at the plant[/DIV][/DIV][/TD][/TR] [TR] [TD vAlign=top width=416][FONT size=2][!-- S BO --][!-- S IIMA --] [FONT size=3][img alt="Oleg Ryazanov" hspace=0 src="vny!://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41579000/jpg/_41579522_oleg_ryazanov416.jpg" width=416 border=0] [/FONT][/DIV][BR clear=all][!-- E IIMA --] [FONT size=3]Oleg Ryazanov, 45
Control room shift manager
Chernobyl nuclear power station reactors 1 and 2
[/FONT] [FONT size=3]I didn't work here when the accident occurred, I worked at a different nuclear power station. I heard the reports as I was taking my baby daughter to my mother-in-law's near Odessa, and at first I did not believe them. [/FONT] [FONT size=3]I moved to Chernobyl because the package on offer was good - more pay and a bigger flat. Before we had just one room (plus kitchen and bathroom), but here we got three rooms. [/FONT] [FONT size=3]I did have some concerns about whether it was the best place to bring up my daughter, but these were outweighed by the other factors. [/FONT]

[/FONT][/TD][/TR][/TBODY][/TABLE] I earn about 4,000 hryvnia per month, about $800, which is quite high on the power station's pay scale. In Ukraine it is a very good salary.

 My job is to keep the reactor under control, to keep the water cooling system running and to monitor the spent fuel tanks. A chain reaction is possible in this reactor because it still contains fuel. However, its licence runs out in September and the plan is to remove the fuel by then.  It's depressing. Soon my job will cease to exist. I can only do the job I was trained to do for another two years here. If I change to another job I can stay for five years.  Ukraine is preparing to build new reactors but this will take a long time and the political situation is unstable. The next government could drop the idea.  I don't rule out going to work abroad. People have gone from here to China and Iran. I would not go to Iran, but China is a possibility. [!-- E BO --]


"We can't stop here. This is bat country."

Sportsdude

 [TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=629 border=0] [TBODY] [TR] [TD colSpan=3] [DIV class=mxb] [DIV class=sh]Chernobyl voices: Igor Komissarenko - Surgeon[/DIV][/DIV][/TD][/TR] [TR] [TD vAlign=top width=416][FONT size=2][!-- S BO --][!-- S IIMA --] [img alt="Professor Igor Komissarenko " hspace=0 src="vny!://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41579000/jpg/_41579750_igor_komissarenko416.jpg" width=416 border=0] [/DIV][BR clear=all][!-- E IIMA --] [FONT size=3]Professor Igor Vasilevich Komissarenko
Surgeon, Institute of Endocrinology, Kiev
[/FONT] [FONT size=3]Great accuracy is needed when operating on the thyroid gland. You must not harm the major nerves in the neck, or the parathyroid gland. We remove the whole thyroid gland, in cases of thyroid cancer. [/FONT] [FONT size=3]This is in case the cancer is growing in more than one place, but it also helps us search for metastases [secondary cancerous growths] using radioactive iodine. [/FONT] [FONT size=3]There was a sharp jump in cases of thyroid cancer about three-and-a-half or four years after the accident - mostly among children. We used to have a maximum of two or three child thyroid cancer cases per year in this clinic, but in 1989 we had seven and in 1990, 21. [/FONT] [!-- S IBOX --] [TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=208 align=right border=0] [TBODY] [TR] [TD width=5][img height=1 alt="" hspace=0 src="vny!://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/shared/img/o.gif" width=5 border=0][/TD] [TD class=sibtbg] [DIV class=o][img height=152 alt="Professor Igor Komissarenko " hspace=0 src="vny!://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41579000/jpg/_41579746_igor_komissarenko203b.jpg" width=203 border=0]

 [DIV class=mva][img height=13 alt="" src="vny!://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/img/v3/start_quote_rb.gif" width=24 border=0] When will it all end? I think when this generation passes away [img height=13 alt="" src="vny!://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/img/v3/end_quote_rb.gif" width=23 align=right border=0][BR clear=all][/DIV][/DIV][/TD][/TR][/TBODY][/TABLE][!-- E IBOX --][FONT size=3]The closer to the source, to the Chernobyl region, the more cases of cancer. The further, the fewer. There was a release of radioactive iodine, and children were affected most because they were growing. They breathed it in, or drank it in milk. [/FONT] [FONT size=3]We immediately understood they were radiation cancers, because of the way they were formed. They were also aggressive, and metastasised quickly, invading surrounding tissue. [/FONT] [FONT size=3]Sick adults [/FONT] [FONT size=3]The initial cancer might be small, but the metastases were big. In many cases there were already metastases before the illness was discovered. Another tell-tale sign was the presence, often, of multiple sources of cancer in the same gland. [/FONT]

 [FONT size=3]In 1991, 1992 and 1993 we reached a plateau. We had up to 50 cases per year. Then in 2003 the number of cases among children and young people declined. Why? One reason is that children born after Chernobyl were not exposed to radioactive iodine, which quickly decayed. Another is that people who were children at the time of the accident were already adults. [/FONT]

 [FONT size=3]The increase in cases of thyroid cancer among adults began after five years, and increased sharply after 10 years. Now there are lots of cases, and not only among people who were children at the time of the accident. Our diagnostics have improved. It's rare now to find children with a big cancer and lots of metastases, but it still happens with adults. [/FONT] [FONT size=3]Today, the number of child patients is one-and-a-half or two times higher than before the accident, but this is due to other sources of pollution. The ecological situation is generally bad. Also, iodine was not the only isotope thrown out by Chernobyl. [/FONT] [FONT size=3]When will it all end? I think when this generation passes away. [!-- E BO --]
[/FONT]

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"We can't stop here. This is bat country."

Sportsdude

 [TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=629 border=0] [TBODY] [TR] [TD colSpan=3] [DIV class=mxb] [DIV class=sh]Chernobyl voices: Lena and Anya Kostuchenko [/DIV][/DIV][/TD][/TR] [TR] [TD vAlign=top width=416][FONT size=2][!-- S BO --][!-- S IIMA --] [img alt="Lena and Anna Kostuchenko " hspace=0 src="vny!://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41579000/jpg/_41579074_lena_anna-kostuchenko416.jpg" width=416 border=0] [/DIV][BR clear=all][!-- E IIMA --] [FONT size=3]Lena Kostuchenko, 39, and her daughter Anya, 19
Chernobyl zone evacuees in Kiev
[/FONT] [FONT size=3]I was five months' pregnant when the accident occurred. My husband and I were spending the weekend at my mother's house in Kopachi (a village just south of the power station). We woke up on Saturday morning and decided to go to Chernihiv, the nearest big town, to buy maternity clothes. [/FONT] [FONT size=3]At the bus stop we saw lots of fire engines and troop carriers on the main road. We waited and waited, but no bus came. Eventually a policeman told us there would be no buses, because there had been an accident. [/FONT] [FONT size=3]There had been small accidents before, so we did not worry. We worked in the garden all day. [/FONT]

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 [TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=208 align=right border=0] [TBODY] [TR] [TD width=5][img height=1 alt="" hspace=0 src="vny!://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/shared/img/o.gif" width=5 border=0][/TD] [TD class=sibtbg]  [DIV class=mva][img height=13 alt="" src="vny!://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/img/v3/start_quote_rb.gif" width=24 border=0] In 2004, Anya caught meningitis and was in a coma for three days [img height=13 alt="" src="vny!://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/img/v3/end_quote_rb.gif" width=23 align=right border=0][BR clear=all][/DIV][/TD][/TR][/TBODY][/TABLE][!-- E IBOX --]On the Sunday I had to go to work in Pripyat. Again there were no buses, so we set off on foot. But I began to feel very ill, before I had got half way. My husband helped me home, then walked to Pripyat alone.

 When he got back, he said the town had been evacuated. By then I had got out of bed and wandered outside. Another policeman finally told me the truth - he said there was high radiation and pregnant women should get out at all costs. At that time I did not know what radiation was.   Abortions   Police were blocking the main road, but we drove to Ivankiv via back roads. Two days later I ended up in hospital. Doctors threw away my clothes, and "decontaminated" me with a cold shower.

 There were lots of other pregnant women there. The doctors said all would have abortions, or induced births. They did some of the abortions quickly, then changed their mind and said we would all give birth, after all.

 We went to Chop (on the Hungarian border) then to Mykolayiv (near the Black Sea). In each new town, I had to throw away the clothes I had bought in the last one. They must have been contaminated by my own radioactive body.   I gave birth to Anya two months early. She was big - 2.5kg (5.5lbs) and 49cm tall - but her nails had not formed and she was a yellowish colour, so she was put in an incubator. I was not allowed to see her for eight days.   Blood disease   Later, when we moved to Kiev, spetgwpdts hospitalised her on sight. Her haemoglobin count was about a quarter or a third of the normal level. At that time you could not say it was because of Chernobyl - it could be anything except Chernobyl. Much later a haematology professor told me I had been very unlucky: I was in the wrong place at the wrong time of my pregnancy.   Anya is like a house plant. She has a very rare blood disease and almost no immunity. In 2004 she caught meningitis and was in a coma for three days. A doctor told me it was all over, but she pulled through.   In the 1990s a law was passed, which promised benefits to Chernobyl invalids, but it said nothing about child invalids. Together with some other parents I formed an organisation, Flowers in the Wormwood, which successfully lobbied for the law to be changed.   There is a tendency now to play down the problem of Chernobyl, and, if possible, to forget it. Once the 20th anniversary has passed, I think the state will begin to withdraw support. [!-- E BO --]


 
"We can't stop here. This is bat country."

Sportsdude

 [TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=629 border=0] [TBODY] [TR] [TD colSpan=3] [DIV class=mxb] [DIV class=sh]Chernobyl voices: Mikhail Shakun [/DIV][/DIV][/TD][/TR] [TR] [TD vAlign=top width=416][FONT size=2][!-- S BO --][!-- S IIMA --] [img alt="Mikhail Shakun" hspace=0 src="vny!://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41579000/jpg/_41579900_mikhail_shakun416.jpg" width=416 border=0] [/DIV][BR clear=all][!-- E IIMA --]  [FONT size=3]Mikhail Shakun
Evacuee from contaminated village outside the zone
[/FONT] [FONT size=3]I was born and brought up in the village of Lokachkiv. It's outside the Chernobyl zone, but it was badly contaminated. Other villages next door were all right, but we were unlucky. [/FONT] [FONT size=3]All sorts of spetgwpdts visited us, foreigners, people from Moscow, to measure the radiation. They even measured the inside of the stove. Eventually they decided it was unsafe to live there, and 13 years ago we were evacuated to this village, Ulyanivka. [/FONT] [!-- S IBOX --] [TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=208 align=right border=0] [TBODY] [TR] [TD width=5][img height=1 alt="" hspace=0 src="vny!://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/shared/img/o.gif" width=5 border=0][/TD] [TD class=sibtbg] [DIV class=o][img height=152 alt="Mikhail Shakun's village" hspace=0 src="vny!://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41579000/jpg/_41579898_mikhail_shakun203a.jpg" width=203 border=0]

 [DIV class=mva][img height=13 alt="" src="vny!://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/img/v3/start_quote_rb.gif" width=24 border=0] When we came here it was naked, like a field [img height=13 alt="" src="vny!://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/img/v3/end_quote_rb.gif" width=23 align=right border=0][BR clear=all][/DIV][/DIV][/TD][/TR][/TBODY][/TABLE][!-- E IBOX --][FONT size=3]At that stage no-one told us what radiation was. It has been explained to us since, but back then we did not know. [/FONT] [FONT size=3]There is no comparison between the two villages. There we had forest, rivers, beautiful nature. We had old wooden houses, and barns and stored our food in underground cellars. We took our water from wells. [/FONT] [FONT size=3]When we came here it was naked, like a field. There were houses and nothing else. We had to plant everything. [/FONT] [FONT size=3]Frost in May [/FONT] [FONT size=3]There is nothing good about these homes. They were jerry-built and not fit to live in. Nearly all of them are subsiding, we all have cracks in the walls. I have had waist-high snowdrifts in the loft. We constantly have to make repairs. [/FONT]

[/FONT][/TD][/TR][/TBODY][/TABLE]

  I didn't know there was a drain buried in the garden. I smashed it when I was planting an apple tree, and produced a fountain of water.  The old village no longer exists. It is completely overgrown. Our homes were dismantled and buried in trenches.  In the years after the accident the weather became very strange. Crops kept failing. One year there was a frost in May.  Two people who stayed behind both died, one of them of cancer. But we have also buried 30 people since we moved here, including my mother and father.  Our grandparents are buried at the cemetery in Lokachiv. Everyone goes back there once a year, the week after Easter. We take food to the graveside and share it with our ancestors.

"We can't stop here. This is bat country."

Sportsdude

 [TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=629 border=0] [TBODY] [TR] [TD colSpan=3] [DIV class=mxb] [DIV class=sh]Chernobyl voices: Mykhailo Martinyuk [/DIV][/DIV][/TD][/TR] [TR] [TD vAlign=top width=416][FONT size=2][!-- S BO --][!-- S IIMA --] [img alt="Mikhailo Martinyuk " hspace=0 src="vny!://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41579000/jpg/_41579946_mikhailo_martinyuk416.jpg" width=416 border=0] [/DIV][BR clear=all][!-- E IIMA --] [FONT size=3]Mykhailo Martinyuk
Lorry driver at meat processing factory
[/FONT] [FONT size=3]I took part in the evacuation of the Chernobyl zone. We were told on 26 April 1986 to be ready, and on 2 and 3 May we were given the task of taking the cattle from a collective farm in Lelev (a village a few kilometres from the power station). [/FONT] [FONT size=3]I never knew what dose I had absorbed. We did not have any dosimeters. But at the time we were told the radiation in Lelev was two roentgen per hour. We spent about 24 hours there. I destroyed my clothes before going home. [/FONT] [!-- S IBOX --] [TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=208 align=right border=0] [TBODY] [TR] [TD width=5][img height=1 alt="" hspace=0 src="vny!://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/shared/img/o.gif" width=5 border=0][/TD] [TD class=sibtbg]  [DIV class=mva][img height=13 alt="" src="vny!://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/img/v3/start_quote_rb.gif" width=24 border=0] The cattle I delivered for processing did not react to commands - you could hit them, and they would not respond [img height=13 alt="" src="vny!://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/img/v3/end_quote_rb.gif" width=23 align=right border=0][BR clear=all][/DIV][/DIV][/TD][/TR][/TBODY][/TABLE][!-- E IBOX --][FONT size=3]I did various jobs moving cattle from different parts of the zone, over the following months and years. [/FONT] [FONT size=3]We took some cows to the meat processing factory in Zhytomir, where I work, to be measured for radiation. The level was high, 60 to 80 milliroentgen per hour. So the animals were taken to other farms for a month "to get better". [/FONT] [FONT size=3]Leukaemia [/FONT] [FONT size=3]I brought some others cows back to the factory after just such a period of "getting better" and they appeared in fact to have got a lot worse. [/FONT]

[/FONT][/TD][/TR][/TBODY][/TABLE] When we evacuated the cows from Lelev they behaved normally. But the cattle I delivered for processing did not react to commands. You could hit them, and they would not respond.

 Of the 14 drivers based in Zhytomir who did this work, only four are still alive.  I began to feel ill on 18 December last year. I have since been diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukaemia.  Doctors have prescribed interferon, but finding the money for medicine is difficult here. I do not know whether I will be able to do it.  If I continue working I will have to give up being a driver. It is possible I will have to give up work altogether.  [!-- E BO --]


"We can't stop here. This is bat country."

Sportsdude

 [TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=629 border=0] [TBODY] [TR] [TD colSpan=3] [DIV class=mxb] [DIV class=sh]Chernobyl voices: Natalia Khodorivska [/DIV][/DIV][/TD][/TR] [TR] [TD vAlign=top width=416][FONT size=2][!-- S BO --][!-- S IIMA --] [img alt="Natalia Khodorivska" hspace=0 src="vny!://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41579000/jpg/_41579396_natalia_khodorivska416.jpg" width=416 border=0] [/DIV][BR clear=all][!-- E IIMA --] [FONT size=3]Natalia Khodorivska
Sociologist, Kiev
[/FONT] [FONT size=3]The first, very brief, information came from a Moscow evening paper. People from Moscow started to call Kiev saying: "Run, hide your children, something awful has happened." [/FONT] [FONT size=3]We also heard that coaches had been travelling by night, with their headlights switched off, along the main road to Chernobyl. This was one of the most frightening things my friends talked about - whole convoys of coaches.[/FONT]  [!-- S IBOX --] [TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=208 align=right border=0] [TBODY] [TR] [TD width=5][img height=1 alt="" hspace=0 src="vny!://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/shared/img/o.gif" width=5 border=0][/TD] [TD class=sibtbg]  [DIV class=mva][img height=13 alt="" src="vny!://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/img/v3/start_quote_rb.gif" width=24 border=0] The problem of uncertainty about risks existed in 1986, and it remains today [img height=13 alt="" src="vny!://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/img/v3/end_quote_rb.gif" width=23 align=right border=0][BR clear=all][/DIV][/DIV][/TD][/TR][/TBODY][/TABLE][!-- E IBOX --][FONT size=3]We watched the May Day parade in Kiev on television with horror, our hair standing on end. At that point we didn't know how much radiation had been released but we knew something bad had happened. [/FONT] [FONT size=3]The authorities did not want children to leave, nor parents. I had arguments about this at work. The policy was that everyone should stay and not panic. The most offensive thing was that the authorities saved their own children, but did not think about ours at all. [/FONT] [FONT size=3]Depression [/FONT] [FONT size=3]It was only at the end of May that a decision was taken to evacuate all children from Kiev and surrounding towns for the summer - too late to save them from the iodine strike, as doctors call it (the wave of radioactive iodine from Chernobyl). [/FONT]

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 In the Soviet Union there was an illusion of protection - that you had a place to work, a place to live, that you had a future. But when our children were threatened, we learned an awful lot. We understood that if we did not defend ourselves, no-one would, and that we would have to be a lot cleverer, in order to survive.

 It's been clear now for 20 years that no-one is protecting anyone - but a huge army of people still expects the state to look after them. They behave passively, they don't actively seek information, or methods of protection.  It's possible that passivity and depression are themselves caused by radiation, but our doctors do not want to recognise this.  They say these people have radiophobia, that they themselves are to blame. They say: "Why do they sulk, since they chose this position in life, and could have made a different choice?" But it's unknown, whether they had a choice or whether it was force of circumstances.  Contaminated food  The problem of uncertainty about risks existed in 1986, and it remains today. A person does not know how to protect himself. Three doctors produce five diagnoses. Some say it's OK, some say it's bad. Who do you listen to? Who is the expert? An ordinary person cannot assess the risk.  People living in contaminated territories face a problem with food. Economic circumstances oblige them to grow their own, but they don't know how to ensure it is clean. There are more than 450 towns and villages in contaminated areas, and those are the official figures. So a colossal number of people need to be educated.  In childhood we learn not to cross the road without looking in both directions. These people live in contaminated territories and do not know in which direction to look, except to where the icon is hanging so that they can cross themselves - so that God will save them. [!-- E BO --]


"We can't stop here. This is bat country."

Sportsdude

 [TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=629 border=0] [TBODY] [TR] [TD colSpan=3] [DIV class=mxb] [DIV class=sh]Chernobyl voices: Olexiy Breus [/DIV][/DIV][/TD][/TR] [TR] [TD vAlign=top width=416][FONT size=2][!-- S BO --][!-- S IIMA --] [img alt="Olexiy Breus" hspace=0 src="vny!://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41579000/jpg/_41579050_olexiy_breus416_bbc.jpg" width=416 border=0] [/DIV][BR clear=all][!-- E IIMA --] [FONT size=3]Olexiy Breus
Former operator at Chernobyl reactor number four
Now a journalist and artist
[/FONT] [FONT size=3]On 26 April, I was meant to go to work on the fourth unit, after some days off. I drank coffee in the morning and got on the bus. [/FONT] [FONT size=3]I didn't know there had been an accident, even though the power station was visible from my flat. [/FONT] [FONT size=3]Driving up to the atomic station I saw the destroyed unit, and for the first time in my life I understood the meaning of the phrase "hair standing on end". [/FONT] [!-- S IBOX --] [TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=208 align=right border=0] [TBODY] [TR] [TD width=5][img height=1 alt="" hspace=0 src="vny!://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/shared/img/o.gif" width=5 border=0][/TD] [TD class=sibtbg] [DIV class=o][img alt="Olexiy Breus in the control room at Chernobyl, 1984" hspace=0 src="vny!://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41579000/jpg/_41579006_olexiy_breus_84_203_bbc.jpg" width=203 border=0]

 [DIV class=mva][img height=13 alt="" src="vny!://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/img/v3/start_quote_rb.gif" width=24 border=0] Chernobyl is in me forever, and nothing will wash it out [img height=13 alt="" src="vny!://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/img/v3/end_quote_rb.gif" width=23 align=right border=0][BR clear=all][/DIV][/DIV][/TD][/TR][/TBODY][/TABLE][!-- E IBOX --][FONT size=3]The destruction was so great, it seemed to me it had to be a mass grave, that most of the night shift must have died. It was unclear to me why they had brought me there, what could possibly be done. But then, when I entered the station, I noticed that water was being poured from above, and I understood that I would also have to supply water to the reactor, to cool the reactor. [/FONT] [FONT size=3]I was next to the reactor for no more than a few minutes, literally. Four of us entered a room called level 27, the furthest part of which had been destroyed, on the reactor side, and we opened taps on pipes that led to the reactor. Then we returned to the control room. [/FONT] [FONT size=3]I did not know the precise level of radiation. Next to the control room was a puddle of water. I was told that the level by this puddle was 800 micro-roentgen per second. This was exactly 1,000 times greater than the permitted dose intensity. [/FONT] [FONT size=3]That is a lot, but I calculated that it was less than four roentgens per hour, which is bearable. The permitted dose for personnel at that time was around five roentgens per year. After that I heard no more about radiation levels. [/FONT] [FONT size=3]I worked two more days on the third unit. Then I was withdrawn from the zone of ionising rays. In short, I was forbidden from working. [/FONT] [FONT size=3][/FONT] [FONT size=3]Radioactive home [/FONT] [FONT size=3][/FONT] [FONT size=3]In autumn 1986, all evacuated staff from the Chernobyl nuclear power station were allocated flats in Kiev. [/FONT]

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People had been waiting for these flats for years - about 7,000 of them - and they were taken away. This provoked a degree of hostility towards the power station staff, but in a sense, the Kievans were lucky to lose them.  For example, my house was being built in spring and early summer of 1986. At the time of building, naturally the floors of the building were open, there were no windows, there was rain, there was radioactive fallout.  In September my daughter was born in Leningrad. Before bringing her to Kiev I decided to check the flat carefully.  I got a radiation meter and measured every square centimetre of the floors and walls, the windows. I checked everything and in various places the contamination was so high that it went off the scale. This was not an everyday domestic tool, it was calibrated for nuclear power stations.  I took up the linoleum, scraped, got an old vacuum cleaner from a colleague, and sucked up what I scraped with this vacuum cleaner. Then I gave it to the environmental health authorities to dispose of.  Art manifesto  My colleagues also checked their flats, many of them. Some of them found that the dirtiest place was the windowsill, under the paint. They removed the paint. Others had it under the wallpaper. They changed the wallpaper, and cleaned the walls.  [!-- S IIMA --] [TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=203 align=right border=0] [TBODY] [TR] [TD] [img height=152 alt="Olexiy Breus" hspace=0 src="vny!://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41580000/jpg/_41580720_breus_203_painting.jpg" width=203 border=0]  [DIV class=cap]Chernobyl inspires Olexiy Breus's art, but he avoids disturbing images[/DIV][/TD][/TR][/TBODY][/TABLE][!-- E IIMA --]But most people moved in without checking the rooms. You could call in a dosimetrist from the housing department. The dosimetrist came and measured the situation as a whole, the gamma background. He measured it and said: "Your flat is within the norms." My flat was also within the norms, as a whole. But the contamination in some places was very high.  I have been an artist all my life, but after the accident there was a period when journalism squeezed out everything, and I did practically no drawing.  Then, later, I met a group of artists who created an association under the name Strontium-90. They already had a manifesto, describing their art as a call not to forget the lessons of Chernobyl. I joined up with them, and have already been working with them for several years.  As someone who has gone through Chernobyl, I cannot erase it from my life. It is in me forever, and nothing will wash it out. It is not impressions or memories, it is more, it is deeper, it is deep in the soul. [!-- E BO --]


 

"We can't stop here. This is bat country."

Sportsdude

 [TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=629 border=0] [TBODY] [TR] [TD colSpan=3] [DIV class=mxb] [DIV class=sh]Chernobyl voices: Viktoria Bormotova [/DIV][/DIV][/TD][/TR] [TR] [TD vAlign=top width=416][FONT size=2][!-- S BO --][!-- S IIMA --] [img alt="Viktoria Bormotova" hspace=0 src="vny!://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41579000/jpg/_41579028_viktoria_bormotova416.jpg" width=416 border=0] [/DIV][BR clear=all][!-- E IIMA --] [FONT size=3]Viktoria Bormotova
Student activist, Kiev
Born 23 June 1986
[/FONT] [FONT size=3][/FONT] [DIV class=mva][FONT size=3][img height=13 alt="" src="vny!://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/img/v3/start_quote_rb.gif" width=24 border=0] When I was 11 a professor came to our school and said that our future was in bad situation and we had to think about it. [/FONT] [FONT size=3]He had a collection of monsters born in the Chernobyl zone, for example a cow with four horns, a piglet without legs, and a cat with two heads. We had these dried animals in our school, and we were afraid.[/FONT]  [!-- S IBOX --] [TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=208 align=right border=0] [TBODY] [TR] [TD width=5][img height=1 alt="" hspace=0 src="vny!://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/shared/img/o.gif" width=5 border=0][/TD] [TD class=sibtbg]  [DIV class=mva][img height=13 alt="" src="vny!://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/img/v3/start_quote_rb.gif" width=24 border=0] All of us are afraid that our children will be not normal, with some physical deformities [img height=13 alt="" src="vny!://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/img/v3/end_quote_rb.gif" width=23 align=right border=0][BR clear=all][/DIV][/DIV][/TD][/TR][/TBODY][/TABLE][!-- E IBOX --][FONT size=3]We started to do a lot of ecological projects - monitoring the health of young people and the state of the environment in our region. [/FONT] [FONT size=3]When we understood that the situation was not very good, we tried to do something. We started an organisation for youth who wanted to change their future. [/FONT] [FONT size=3]The Youth Ecological Centre tries to give young people information about the ecological situation in our country, and in our city. We try to make children think about these problems and do something to protect our environment. [/FONT] [FONT size=3]We work with schools and with kindergartens. We also arrange activities for children outside school, such as a bicycle patrol in our local forest. They go to the forest, make ecological maps, and collect rubbish. [/FONT] [FONT size=3][/FONT] [FONT size=3]Sun allergies [/FONT] [FONT size=3][/FONT] [FONT size=3]We understood that our health was in very big danger. The results of our medical examinations were bad - our doctor said they were normal for children born in 1986, but not for others. [/FONT]

[/DIV][/FONT][/TD][/TR][/TBODY][/TABLE] A lot of us had to spend time in hospital. I know a lot of children, of my age and a little bit older, who passed their childhood in hospitals. All of us are afraid that our children will be not normal, with some physical deformities.

 I have a problem with my thyroid gland. It's overactive and bigger than it should be. When the sun is shining a lot and I am on the beach I get a rash on my neck and I need to protect it from the sun. People of my age have a lot of problems with sun. A lot of us are allergic to it.

"We can't stop here. This is bat country."