Chernobyl:
A glitch in the (human) machine
Only a few hours later Swedish engineers discovered that the radiation was not being produced by their plant: it was coming from somewhere else. From the USSR, from Chernobyl. And only then, the horror was made public. On the 26th of April, at 1:23 AM, during a routine test on Reactor 4, the reactor exploded with such force that it lifted and destroyed the 500 ton roof of the building, releasing into the air with it an amount of radioactive particles equal to 10 times the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, becoming the biggest nuclear disaster to date in history. Thirty people in charge of the power plant who arrived to extinguish the flames bursting from Reactor 4 died immediately from the radiation exposure, as their skin was melted off by the highly toxic radioactive material. But their horrific death seems like an easier fate when compared to the pain that this accident has caused: thousands of others, many of which young children, were left to a slow and painful end, caused by cancer. The consequences of the Chernobyl disaster are so numerous that it has been hard to calculate them. Three hundred thousand people were relocated, but not before having been infected by the radiation. They were told they would be able to return to their houses after a few days, but in reality the area of Chernobyl is still contaminated and nobody but a handful of families have returned to the farms of the area. Pripyat has been a ghost town for twenty years, the schools there abandoned. Left as they were that day in April, the kettles still on the stoves of the houses, the wallpaper flaking. Now the area is a military zone, and nobody can enter without wearing plastic disposable shoes and adequate protection for the body, so that no-one can carry radioactive dust out of the area. The nearby forest, whose pine trees died immediately after the accident, have slowly repopulated but the soil could not support agriculture. Of those many families, and of many others scattered mostly in Byelorussia and Ukraine, little has been said. According to one of the most criticised reports ever made by the World Health Organisation, only 4000 people, out of which 900 children, died as a consequence of the radiation released by the Chernobyl nuclear plant. However, most NGOs accept the number of half a million in Europe, out of which about 25,000 are predicted to die in the next few years. These people will not receive appropriate help because according to the WHO their sickness is not related to the Chernobyl disaster. Cases of infertility, deformity in newly born babies, and permanent handicaps are not even accounted for in these reports. In 1986, I was a child myself, about the same age of those children playing in Pripyat and like them, I was playing in the streets. One of the first areas the radioactive cloud passed over, before casting its shadow over central Europe, was where I used to live. I was in kindergarten then, with my youngest sister. And there are three things we can clearly remember about those days in early May, all linked to that foreign, scary name: Chernobyl. It was hot, and the spring in full bloom: the grass so tempting and the leaves so green. One morning came the order: we were strictly forbidden to play outdoors. The doors were locked and we could not run in the park anymore. Arriving home, another surprise was waiting for us: my mother made us take off our shoes outside the house. My shiny black patent ballerinas looked at me sadly through the window pane for weeks. And all the salad was thrown away: it was said to be contaminated and dangerous. It only appeared on our plates many months after. Fifteen years later, in 2001, I visited the Black And White exhibition at the United Nations in New York, a collection of photographs documenting the sickness of those who were once healthy children in 1986. And the horror resurfaced. Those kids were slowly ceasing to live and their painful death was documented in these photographs. Many of the images remained printed in my memory: I doubt I have seen such horrors before and I sincerely hope that what caused those deformities and sufferings will never happen again. Indeed, as a consequence of the Chernobyl disaster, a number of countries have taken a clear stance against nuclear energy. Countries in the European Union such as Denmark, Italy, Portugal, Ireland, Greece and a few countries belonging to the former Eastern Union block have discontinued the usage of their nuclear reactors. Some, like Denmark, have decided to invest in renewable sources of energy. Others, like Italy and Greece, prefer to buy energy from other countries (a decision detrimental to their home economy) rather than deal with the possibility of a nuclear accident. But despite these facts, since 1986 many new nuclear power plants have been built around the world (using a different technology) and today there are 440. Energy that comes from nuclear fission is cheap and even the countries who once banned it from their soil are considering the reintroduction, forgetful of what caused the ban in the first place. When confronted with the possible occurrence of another disaster, every country representative has repeated the same sentences about the Chernobyl accident: “Unrepeatable human mistake” and “no reason why we should stop using nuclear energy”. But the reality is that every nuclear power plant, even if built to be automatic, relies on humans in some degree for safety. And the episode of Chernobyl has not been an isolated case: the K-19, yet another Russian submarine fuelled by nuclear power, in 1961 was on the verge of a nuclear explosion in the Atlantic, an accident that was prevented only by the human sacrifice of 20 members of the crew that subsequently died for exposure to the radiation (the submarine acquired then the names of “Hiroshima” and “widowmaker”). More recently in 1997, highly enriched uranium was irradiated inside the power plant of Sarov, Russian Federation. And again in 1999, a small amount of radioactive material was released to the surrounding environment, in Tokaimura, Japan. And other accidents could be mentioned. Is another Chernobyl just waiting to happen? Also, even if none of these accidents had ever occurred, other issues are to be taken into consideration when thinking about nuclear power as the answer to today’s energy crisis. Each nuclear plant produces some highly dangerous nuclear waste that must be disposed of. Radioactive material, which would be capable of causing mutations in the human body and produce cancer, is buried in lead coffins and placed deep into the ground, usually in salt mines (as the presence of salt is an indicator of the lack of water infiltrations). But, should water be contaminated in any way, due to a natural disaster like an earthquake, and then used in agriculture, factory farming or for human consumption, the consequences would not be too different from what happened in Chernobyl 20 years ago. “It’s a very remote possibility” those scientists and country representatives would reply to this hypothesis. With the information we have today on current natural phenomena, contamination by nuclear waste is highly unlikely. But that waste will remain dangerous for some time: about 100 millions years, a period ten times longer than the existence of mankind on the earth. This is the infinite legacy we have decided to leave on our planet as the outcome of the last 50 years and our growing thirst for energy: a potential threat to uncountable generations to come. Not only will they will have to deal with our waste, they will possibly have to face the disastrous consequences of our own lack of respect and care for the environment. And all this, due to our growing demand for energy: our need to brighten our living spaces a little more, to heat our offices a little bit more, to cool our drinks better. Maybe we should all think about it, next time we forget to turn off an electrical appliance and ultimately when we watch our computer screen glowing as we read this article. As it was said just after the Chernobyl disaster occurred, may the alive ones beg for forgiveness from the dead and future ones.
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