The situation in the three
most affected countries due to the UN
Belarus
Approximately 70 per cent of the radioactive
fallout descended on Belarus, making it the worst contaminated of all the
affected countries. Twenty per cent of its forests are still contaminated and
cultivation of 6,000 km2 of agricultural land has been ruled out by law. Nine
per cent of all government expenditure is channelled into mitigation of the
direct consequences of the Chernobyl disaster and 109.000 people have been
resettled.
Ukraine
In Ukraine, nearly 3.5 million people,
including 1,5 million children, were directly affected by the accident. Half a
million children still live in contaminated areas today. Nearly 73,000
Ukrainians are now permanent invalids as a result of Chernobyl and 91,200
people had to be resettled from the 30 km exclusion zone encircling the site of
the accident. More than 50,000 km2 of Ukraine have been
contaminated. As a result of the economic
crisis, the Ukrainian Government manages to make available only a part of the
money originally planned for Chernobyl relief.
Russian
Federation
In the Russian Federation, an area of 57,000
km2 was contaminated, home to 2.7 million people. A total of 200,000 Russians
participated in the emergency clean-up operation, of whom 46,000 are now
invalids as a result. About 1.8 million people, including 300,000 children,
continue to live on contaminated land, while 50,000 have been resettled from
the most dangerous areas. Apart from the “liquidators”, 570,000 people are registered
as affected. Similar to Ukraine, the Government is only able to provide a
portion of the required relief funds.
As a never ending influence of low dose
radiation the number of persons with cancer, retarded development, nervous and
psychological diseases as well as genetic mutations increases every year. Sourse:
the Swedish Samlingsverket Tjernobyl, 1996 (Bön för Tjernobyl).
