April 25, 2006

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The Nuclear Cloud that Still Hangs Over Chernobyl
By Benjamin Seeder
Sydney Morning Herald, Australia
April 22, 2006

Benjamin Seeder visits the danger zone and finds the full financial and social costs are yet to be felt.

SHILAN GRIGOVNA hobbles about her vegetable patch, leaning heavily on a brown walking stick. She is 76 years old and short, and breathes with difficulty as she proudly points stubby, gnarled fingers at her potatoes, garlic, onions and tomatoes, all recently planted.

She smiles toothlessly, her face wizened, and speaks in a barely comprehensible mix of Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian.

"We grow these - tomatoes, potatoes, onions, everything we need. The soil is good, like it always has been, and we fish in the river," she says. "We have some chickens, but we used to have more animals before the disaster: geese and goats. All the animals died then."

Like thousands of Ukrainian-Belarusian peasants, Shilan and her cousin Salitona spend the spring and summer days cultivating their plots, and the long winter in hibernation in their dilapidated cottage living off pickled fruits and vegetables.

At 76 she has outlived her sons, both of whom died less than two years ago, six months apart. Both were in their early 40s, and both died of cancer-related illnesses.

Shilan lives in Parishev, a village of a dozen people 15 minutes' drive from the No. 4 reactor of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, in one of the most contaminated places on the planet.

Next Wednesday it will be 20 years ago that the core of the No. 4 reactor exploded, spewing radioactive gases all over northern Ukraine and southern Belarus, in the worst nuclear catastrophe in history. It killed 30 immediately, has ruined the lives of thousands in the former Soviet Union, and changed those of millions forever.

About 16,000 people still live in Chernobyl, a town just on the edge of a 10-kilometre danger zone. Most are involved in dismantling the other four nuclear reactors that were shut down in 2000. Others work at the site of the stricken No. 4 reactor, where radiation levels continue to reach dangerously high levels.

The original accident that led to two steam explosions and a larger hydrogen explosion in the core of the reactor was caused by a combination of human error and significant design flaws.

The inexperienced operators carried out a risky experiment to see if the reactor could be shut down without electricity, which powers the emergency shutdown systems. A design flaw triggered a steam explosion in the reactor core, and the operators worsened the situation through their lack of nuclear knowledge.

When the Soviet authorities stabilised the fire at the reactor they isolated the plant by building a reinforced metal structure around the entire building. But after 20 years this structure itself is wearing out.

A visit to the reactor entails passing through a checkpoint at the 10-kilometre zone. From about 200 metres away, figures moving on top of the crane are just visible.

"There is a small chance that this could collapse," says Yulia Marusich, an official with the plant's management agency.

"They are working to ensure the structure is stable. It is a requirement before we construct a new shelter, [a project planned by Ukraine's government in 2007]. They are only allowed to work in there in 20-minute shifts per day."

The new shelter and the project to remove the nuclear fuel from the No. 4 reactor are expected to cost the Ukrainian Government billions of dollars. Combined with yearly payments of about $1 billion in compensation benefits and pensions, Chernobyl is a huge financial burden.

"Then there is the cost of lost agricultural land, resettlement costs, and you can see that the economic impact on Ukraine and Belarus has been enormous," says Alexander Kuzma, executive director of the Children of Chernobyl Development Fund.

He says the full social costs are yet to be felt, too.

"I don't think we have seen all of the illnesses, sicknesses come out yet. A lot of cancers and other illnesses have very long latency periods, up to 20 years. So we may only now start to see a rise in certain types of illnesses related to Chernobyl."

That goes against a finding of a report from the Chernobyl Forum, a consensus group comprised of experts from the World Health Organisation, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations and other bodies. That report predicted 4000 additional deaths resulting from radiation exposure.

"It was a ludicrous suggestion, and combined with the suggestion that many Chernobyl invalids' problems were psychologically based," Mr Kuzma says. "There is enough evidence out there already to suggest otherwise."

Meanwhile, Shilan and her cousin continue the quiet life, only one kilometre from the plant that almost certainly claimed the lives of both her sons. The accident has blighted their lives and has taken away their closest relatives. It has touched them in other ways, too.

"Before there were children here, many," Shilan says. "They played in the fields and fished. Now they have all gone away. Before, we had goats, some cows and geese, but now we only have a few chickens. They all died after the accident.

Life is more boring; it goes more slowly for us without children."

http://smh.com.au/news/world/the-nuclear-cloud-that-still-hangs-over-chernobyl/2006/04/21/1145344272760.html