(April 21, 1992) The situation around the ruined Chernobyl plant continues to be of concern, with the main health impact falling on children.
(370.3630) WISE Amsterdam - According to the Ukrainian Central Information Service, (UCIS), nearly two million people still live on contaminated land. Five million hectares of Ukrainian farmland and 1.8 million Ha of forest are contaminated. Most contaminated areas will be unsuitable for habitation or cultivation for the next 100 years, while the more seriously contaminated areas will be unsafe for the next 1000 years. [UCIS Briefing Paper].
According to Nick Schola of the Chernobyl Relief Fund, the most contaminated area is not the area close in to the reactor itself, but the Bryansk area, on which much of the contents of the radioactive cloud were made to fall by cloud seeding operations, as it was feared that it would otherwise pass over Moscow. Vibshkov village in this area has 50-90 Ci/km2, while Krasnaya Gora in the Novozhibkov region near the Byelorussian border has 50 to 100 Ci/km2. There have been no attempts to evacuate people from the Novozhiebkov area, and food continues to be grown there. Playgrounds in the area have all been concreted over, and children are kept indoors.
According to Ukrainian doctors and the Ukrainian Green Party, about 160,000 Ukrainian children under 7 years of age have received radiation doses high enough to cause thyroid cancer. Since 1986, there has been a 92% increase in all childrens' cancers, while congenital birth defects, blood and nervous system disorders, and thyroid cancers have doubled.
Children in the more heavily contaminated areas suffer from thyroid problems, baldness, anaemia, nose bleeding, headaches, and weak eyesight. Birth rates in the Ukraine have fallen by 13%, while the overall death rate has risen by 6.8%. [UCIS Briefing Paper]
An October 1991 appeal by the Diocese of Bryansk and Orel of the Moscow Patriarchate reads in part:
"The elementary analysis of blood tests is horrifying... Only thee to five percent of our children were found to be healthy. We have no means to cure the remainder or to nurse them back to health."
Source: The above is written by John R. Hallam and reprinted from the "Chernobyl Day Media Kit" which is being distributed by Friends of the Earth Sydney as part of their preparation for the Chernobyl Day Commemoration they are planning with Movement Against Uranium Mining (see in brief, this issue). The kit includes background on the Chernobyl accident as well as information on nuclear power in the CIS; The Sosnovy Bor accident; global nuclear safety; and Energy Resources of Australia and the global uranium market.
Contact: The "Chernobyl Day Media Kit" can be ordered from John R. Hallam, FOE Sydney, Suite 8, 134 Broadway, Sydney NSW 2007, Australia; tel: +61 2 281 4070; fax: 2 281 5216; GreenNet: peg!foesydney.