Application 14 Effects of the accident

communities are organic and complex, so it is not surprising that when a new community organic and complex, so it is not surprising that when a new community is created from scratch, it does not always run smoothly. The local economies of the new settlements have to be subsidized by the national governments and there are high levels of unemployment.

In Ukraine, a new town called Slavutich had to be built for the people evacuated from Pripyat, a town with a population of 55,000 that had been home to the workers at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. Before reactor 3 was closed December 15, 2000 about 6,000 inhabitants of Slavutich still were working at the plant. Today the situation probably is the same. The closed exclusion zone is the greatest laboratory of the world. There are research centres and information centres as well as other activities. At least two new factories are under construction in Chernobyl to take care of the radioactive, nuclear waste.

The town Chernobyl, with 25 000 inhabitants in small houses were evacuated

as were the 55 000 inhabitants of the secret nuclear power town Pripyat.

Medical effects of the Chernobyl accident 

April 28, 2004, the people of Chernobyl will celebrate, that it is 18 years since they had to left their homes. During one week the former inhabitants are aloud to return to their old homes. Most of them will visit the old cemeteries to meet with former neighbours and to take care of the graves of their loved once.

The OCHA-report from the UN concludes that, when it comes to health effects from the accident, the worst may still come. So far the biggest visible threat to health has been thyroid cancer. During the accident, there were large emissions of radioactive Iodine-131, which affects the thyroid gland

and can lead to thyroid cancer as well as other thyroid disorders. Radioactive iodine has a short half-life and so decays quickly, ceasing to contaminate the region. However, it takes some time for

thyroid cancer to develop, and the people most vulnerable are those who were young children or babies unborn at the time of the accident.

The number of people with thyroid cancer began to increase about five years after the accident. This number continues to rise. In some areas the incidence is over a hundred times higher than before the accident. Scientists originally predicted that the incidence would not peak until 2006, and it was expected that the figure would eventually reach 6,600, but recently the number of cases has exceeded expectations. Over 11,000 cases of thyroid cancer have already been reported.

The World Health Organization’s International Thyroid Project has found evidence suggesting that even relatively low levels of radiation exposure may result in under active thyroid syndrome, also known as hypothyroidism. Hypothyroidism can have the following effects: in new-borns, severe mental and growth retardation; in children it can cause dwarfism; and in adults it can cause lethargy, cold intolerance, weight gain, swelling of hands and feet, increased menstrual flow, infertility and depressed heart function.

Evidence is also coming to light suggesting that lung, heart and kidney problems can also be traced to radiation released from Chernobyl.

The health impact of the disaster is not restricted to the direct effects of radiation exposure. The contamination of agricultural land has practically nullified agricultural production, and this has had a severe nutritional impact on the population. According to the Ministry of Emergencies 80 per cent of the population of Belarus have health problems ranging from vitamin deficiencies to thyroid cancers. 

Medical effects in other countries

- some telegrams

2001-03-01

France-Chernobyl

French cancer patients sue state over Chernobyl nuclear disaster
  

PARIS, March 1 (AFP) - Fifty-one French cancer patients filed a lawsuit on Thursday charging that French authorities in 1986 failed to take adequate measures to protect the population following the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of 51 people suffering from thyroid cancer and related illnesses blamed on the radioactive fall-out from the blast at the Chernobyl plant in Ukraine.

Two associations -- one representing thyroid cancer victims and the second an indepedent research organization on radioactivity (CRII-RAD) -- also joined the suit.

Roland Desbordes, head of CRII-RAD, said the aim of the lawsuit was to denounce the "lies" the state perpetrated at the time of the Chernobyl disaster. He admitted that it would be diffult to prove a link between the illnesses and the radioactive fall-out from the accident.

"We have documents showing an increase in the number of thyroid cancer cases since Chernobyl but it is not easy to say whether each case is due to the radioactive cloud or something else," Desbordes said.

The lawsuit charges that, unlike their European neighbors, French authorities in 1986 played down the danger or scope of contamination. Two similar lawsuits filed in France by a cancer patient who blamed his illness on the Chernobyl disaster were thrown out of court in the last year.

One of the suits, filed by Yohann Van Waeyenberghe, was thrown out in the autumn on grounds

the statute of limitations had expired.

Another lawsuit filed by Van Waeyenberghe against three former ministers was also dismissed last June on grounds the ministers could not be held accountable and that there was no proof linking the passage of the radioactive cloud with cancer sufferers in France.

That complaint had been filed against former ministers Charles Pasqua, Michele Barzach and Alain Carignon, who handled the interior, health and environment portfolios at the time of the Chernobyl accident.

cb/jz/mec

2001-07-30

France-Chernobyl
Chernobyl investigators probe French government documents
  
PARIS, July 30 (AFP) - French prosecutors investigating the impact on France of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident are looking into government decisions made at the time of the world's worst civilian nuclear disaster, a source close to the inquiry said on Monday.

The investigators are studying government documents from the national archives, particularly letters between ministers discussing what to do about the radioactive cloud that drifted into France from the damaged nuclear plant in Ukraine, the source told AFP.

The public prosecutor opened an inquiry in mid-July following a complaint by associations representing 51 people who blame their thyroid conditions on the radioactive cloud.

The prosecutor rejected the associations' accusations of criminal "poisoning" but are investigating possible "involuntary violence" in connection with case.
The complainants, aged between 15 and 61, accuse the French authorities of failing to properly inform the country's inhabitants about the risks associated with the explosion of reactor four at the Chernobyl plant on April 26, 1986.
cpy/gil/sas

2001-10-05

France-Chernobyl

125 new lawsuits filed in France over Chernobyl radiation
  
PARIS, Oct 5 (AFP) - Lawyers for dozens of French people suffering from thyroid conditions they blame on radioactivity from the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear explosion filed 125 lawsuits Friday alleging French authorities failed to inform them of the dangers they faced from the accident.
The lawsuits, filed in the name of about 40 plaintiffs who claim they were effectively poisoned, follow 53 similar complaints lodged in March.

Following the earlier suits, the public prosecutor opened an official inquiry in mid-July.
"When all the individual cases are processed from here in two weeks, there will be 211 in all," said Chantal L'Hoir, the president of an association representing the thyroid sufferers.
The plaintiffs accuse the French authorities of failing to properly inform the country's inhabitants about the risks associated with the explosion of reactor four at the nuclear power plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine, on April 26, 1986.

The prosecutor has rejected the associations' accusations of criminal poisoning, but is continuing to investigate possible "involuntary violence" in connection with the case.
cb/jb/dm

2003-01-08

France-nuclear
Mysterious radioactive readings in France linked to nuclear tests
  
TOULOUSE, France, Jan 8 (AFP) - Mysterious traces of radioactivity have been found in southwestern France, a scientific study ordered by an environmental group and published Wednesday said.

The "large" amounts of cesium 137 and americium 241 detected in the soil of the Montagne Noire (Black Mountain), an area east of Toulouse, had caused a contamination that was up to eight times that deposited in the region by the radioactive cloud that swept west after the Chernobyl nuclear reactor disaster in 1986, the study said.

The presence of the americium 241, which is formed by the bombardment of plutonium with high-energy neutrons, and the absence of the cesium 134 characteristic of Chernobyl deposits "lead us to suspect fall-out from atmospheric nuclear tests," one of the study's authors, Bruno Chareyrou, told AFP.

His laboratory team from the Commission for Research and Independent Information on Radioactivity (CRIIRAD) found that the traces suggested that the residue was left over from the

testing of atomic bombs in the atmosphere during the 1950s and 1960s by the United States and the then Soviet Union and, to a lesser degree, Britain and France.

The CRIIRAD was contracted to conduct the analyses by the environmental group Friends of the Earth after the publication last year of an "atlas of radioactive contamination" in Europe by an independent geologist, Andre Paris, who found abnormal traces of cesium 137 on the Montagne Noire.

The CRIIRAD said further studies should now be made on mushrooms and fauna in the region "to determine the health effect of the military nuclear tests in the 50s and 60s on the population".
pa/rmb/gk

LONDON (Reuter) - Greek children

who were exposed to radioactive fallout from the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster while still in their mothers' wombs were twice as likely to develop leukemia, researchers reported Wednesday.

Dimitrios Trichopolous of the Harvard Center for Cancer Prevention and colleagues said they had found clear evidence that the explosion could have caused one form of the common childhood cancer, which makes up a third of all malignant cancers in children.

                       

``Infants exposed in utero to ionizing radiation from the Chernobyl accident had 2.6 times the incidence of leukemia compared to unexposed children,'' they wrote in the science journal Nature.

                       

``Those born to mothers residing in regions with high radioactive fallout were at higher risk of developing infant leukemia.''

                     

They checked every case of childhood leukemia reported in Greece against measurements of the fallout from the disaster which, because of weather conditions, hit Greece hard.

                     

They found no difference in cancer rates among children who were a year to four years old at the time of the accident. They noted that mutations to a gene known as 11q23 were  linked with infant leukemia, and studies had shown such mutations were likely to arise during pregnancy. They thought it likely that radiation could cause the mutations, although they did not check the children for the genetic mutation.

``We provide evidence that infant leukemia may be caused by  very low level intrauterine exposure to ionising radiation (and) that fallout from the Chernobyl explosion may have increased the incidence of infant leukemia among Greek children exposed in utero, perhaps by as much as two to three fold,'' they concluded.

                       

But low-level radiation before conception seemed to have no effect on leukemia risk -- in other words, it did not seem to affect the mothers' eggs or the fathers' sperm.

                       

Epidemiologists Sarah Darby of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund in Britain and Eve Roman of the Leukemia Research Fund said the study did not necessarily show that Chernobyl radiation

caused leukemia.

                       

``The question arises as to whether those living in high radioactivity areas would actually have received the highest doses, since the majority of Chernobyl exposure came from ingestion of contaminated foodstuff,'' they wrote in a commentary on the study.

                       

Rates of thyroid cancer, especially among children, rose 100-fold in Belarus after the April, 1986 Chernobyl accident across the border in Ukraine spewed a radioactive cloud.

Chernobyl affected unborn babies

By Matt Crenson, Associated Press science editor 

NEW YORK -- For the first time, researchers have detected elevated leukemia rates 

among children exposed in the womb to fallout from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, raising 

disturbing questions about the effects of everyday, low-level radiation on early pregnancy. 

Infant leukemia rates more than doubled among Greek children who were exposed to the 

nuclear power plant's fallout while their mothers were in the early stages of pregnancy, 

according to a study released Thursday. 

The radiation exposure in Greece was only up to five times higher than what Greeks 

normally would have received in the year after the accident. 

That suggested to the researchers that even the low levels of radiation people are exposed 

to every day -- much of it naturally occurring in food, water and the air -- also could 

contribute to cancer. There are trace amounts of radioactive elements everywhere. 


"This is going to create a lot of objections from people who think there is an overanxiety 

over low levels of exposure," said one of the authors, Dimitrios Trichopoulos of the Harvard 

Center for Cancer Prevention in Boston. 

The study, published in the journal Nature, is the first indication that leukemia rates 

might have increased in areas affected by the Chernobyl fallout. Other studies have

 found elevated rates of thyroid cancer among children. 

The researchers collected information on 1.3 million children born in Greece during 

the 1980s. Among those born in the months after Chernobyl, the researchers found, 

children in parts of Greece exposed to the fallout were 2.6 times more likely to suffer from 

leukemia than their unexposed counterparts. 

Radiation exposure in Greece was much lower than in regions closer to the accident, 

which occurred near the Ukrainian city of Kiev. 

In Europe overall, about one in 2,000 children develops leukemia by the age of 15. 

The cancer, which affects the tissues that generate blood cells in the bone marrow and

 lymph system, is fatal for about three out of four infants who get the disease. 

Among epidemiologists, the dangers of low radiation doses from such sources as X-rays 

and natural radon gas are greatly disputed. Some researchers point out that there is little 

direct information about low doses, because the health effects of radiation largely have 

been studied among populations exposed to high levels, such as survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs. 

The study detected additional leukemia cases by looking not just at who was exposed to 

Chernobyl's radiation, but when. Babies conceived after the fallout had dissipated had 

no  increased incidence of leukemia. Neither did children who were exposed as infants or 

during the last stages of pregnancy. Only infants who were exposed during the early 

stages of fetal development suffered leukemia at increased levels, the study found. 

Based on that finding, the researchers suggested that the radiation may have caused 

genetic damage during the critical early stages of pregnancy that led to the leukemia. 

"It's far from proven by these data, but it's certainly an interesting possibility," said 

Michael Swift of the New York Medical College in Valhalla. Most experts said the study 

merely shows an association between Chernobyl and leukemia, not a direct cause-and-

effect relationship. 

"That's a big jump to say that would explain all of the cases of infant leukemia," said 

ZoAnn Dreyer of the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. "We don't know what really 

causes most cases of cancer in children." 

If natural radiation does cause a significant number of cases of infant leukemia -- 

leukemia occuring in children less than a year old -- then the simple acts of breathing, 

eating and even living expose people to a certain amount of risk that can't be avoided, the 

researchers said. 

"I am not an alarmist," Mr. Trichopoulos said, "but data are data, and one has to be 

honest."

Chernobyl accident still haunts UK

OSLO - Nearly seventeen years after the world’s worst nuclear power accident at the Chernobyl nuclear plant, some 400 British farms are still being monitored for radioactive contamination.

Zackary Moss, 2003-03-05 14:50

According to reports in the British press, restrictions are still in place on nearly 400 British farms after being contaminated by radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl accident. Today, nearly 223,000 British sheep are still being monitored for radioactive contamination.

The world’s worst nuclear accident

On April 26th 1986, a power surge at Chernobyl reactor No.4 led to the world’s worst nuclear accident and killed 31 people.

Design flaws in the Chernobyl reactor most likely caused the power surge which led to the core's meltdown. This led to chemical explosions so powerful that they blew the 1,000-tonne cover off the top of the reactor. 8 tonnes of uranium dioxide was released and spread across the surrounding countryside. Some 27kg of cancer-inducing ceasium-137 was released into the atmosphere. And an estimated 150-200 million curies — equivalent to 100 times the radioactivity released from the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 — was also released.

In Ukraine, 3.7 million people were affected by radiation and more than 160,000 inhabitants had to be resettled. Some five million people were exposed to radiation in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia alone. And although most of the contamination affected nearby countries, it also spread thousands of miles to Europe and beyond.

British farms still contaminated

Several days after the accident, a vast radioactive cloud drifted across parts of the UK, leaving a blanket of poisonous caesium-137 over England, Wales and the south and west of Scotland. In 1986 and 1987, restrictions were imposed on approximately 10,000 farms, of which 2,144 were in Scotland alone. Restrictions in June 1986 covered 5,100 farms in North Wales, about 120 in Northern Ireland and 1,670 in Cumbria in England. It is estimated that compensation to all the sheep farms affected in Great Britain has cost British taxpayers £13m.

Today, 386 British farms are still under restriction. According to the British government’s Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, or Defra, these include nine farms in Cumbria with 11,500 sheep, 359 farms in Wales with 180,000 sheep and 18 farms in Scotland with 38,000 sheep. All farms in Northern Ireland were derestricted in 2000.

In restricted areas, sheep have to be monitored with a Geiger counter before they can be sold to prevent contaminated meat from entering the foodchain.

The caesium-137 threshold in sheep is 1,000Bq/kg. Sheep with levels of radioactivity of 1,000Bq/kg and above are marked with an indelible paint and moved from the upland fells to lower ground because the fells have a higher caesium-137 content then lowland areas due to the soil's peat content. The sheep are checked again a few weeks later. When radioactivity has fallen below 1,000Bq/kg, sheep can be sent for market for slaughter.

Officials from the Carlisle office of Defra regularly visit Cumbrian farms to test sheep for radiation picked up from the contaminated fells. But the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in 2001 has held up the monitoring of livestock, however, as sheep could not be moved off the restricted area without monitoring there was no risk of sheep above the limit being allowed into the foodchain.

In a telephone interview with Bellona Web Tuesday, Dr Jillian Spindura, Senior Scientific Officer at the Radiological Protection and Research Management Division of the British government’s Food Standards Agency, said: “despite the outbreak of foot-and-mouth, which complicated livestock monitoring for derestriction purposes, the number of restricted farms has fallen in recent years, although most of the remaining farms with higher levels of contamination are not likely to be derestricted in the near future.”

“Besides, [European Union] enlargement in 2004 could see the caesium-137 threshold change because new entrants would have their livestock included in the expanded market. This might see the threshold fall to a level of, say, 600Bq/kg that would make the de-restriction of some British farms more unlikely in the near future”, Dr Spindura continued.

The EU position and the possibility of new international guidelines on the levels of radionuclides in food is complex and no actual proposed levels have yet been put forward, although discussions are taking place. It is difficult to say if and when new limits would apply.

Chernobyl-type reactors still in use

Chernobyl reactor No. 4 was a RBMK-1000 nuclear reactor, which is widely regarded as the world’s least safe nuclear reactor because of its technical design and because the graphite in the reactor core is combustible.

Ukraine and Lithuania still operate RBMK-1000 reactors at the Chernobyl and Ignalina plants respectively. The European Commission, or EC, considers RBMK reactors to be "non-upgradeable", meaning that minor design and operation changes will not offset the safety problems of the reactor design. As such, considerable international financial assistance has been made available to assist the closure of the remaining RBMK reactors.

In fact, as part of Lithuania’s accession partnership agreements unit 1 at Ignalina nuclear power plant must be closed in 2005. Unit 2 must be closed in 2009.

Euratom and Kursk reactor No. 5

Earlier this year the EC prepared a Non-Paper — entitled Responses to questions raised in the Meeting of Financial Counsellors of Permanent Representatives of 10 December 2002 — for the European Council that included a list of known projects in the beneficiary countries of the Euratom loan facility. The Non-Paper was distributed to European Union Member States before being leaked to the press.

The Non-Paper was shown to contain wording relating to the use of Euratom loans to complete the construction of a RBMK-1000 reactor at the Kursk plant in Russia.

The Kursk plant is located in Kurskaya Oblast, 500km south of Moscow. The plant is run, owned and operated by Rosenergatom, a subdivision of the Russian Ministry of Atomic Energy, Minatom. The Kursk plant has four RBMK-1000 reactors in operation; two first generation and two second generation.

The two oldest reactors are first generation RBMK-1000 reactors, while the two newest are second generation RBMK-1000 reactors. The first reactor commenced operation in December 1976, the second in January 1979, the third in October 1983 and the fourth in December 1985.

The Kursk plant has the highest reported number of RBMK-related incidents. Until the end of 1995, 230 incidents were reported involving hazardous substances. The International Atomic Energy Agency investigated security at the Kursk plant in 1992 and again in1995, recommending numerous actions be taken to improve safety. Construction on reactor No.5 started in 1985 but is

not progressing as planned due to a shortage of funds.

Given Chernobyl's radioactive legacy is still around 17 years after the accident, Kursk No.5 should not be completed. And for the sake of the environment and public health all remaining RBM reactors should be closed down as soon as possible.

Long-term health effects

Very little is known about the long-term health effects of exposure to radiation because it is a relatively new phenomenon, and the full consequences may not be apparent for a very long time.

Statistic show that, so far, thyroid cancer is the primary form of cancer which can be directly linked with Chernobyl, but most other cancers would not start to show up for at least 10 years after the accident, and might well take 15-20 years to materialize. When other types of cancer do materialize, it will be difficult to prove that they were caused by radiation exposure, because medical science is not yet able to differentiate between cancers resulting form exposure to radiation and cancers resulting from other causes.

Recent studies have shown that some people, who were children at the time of the disaster, have developed rogue antibodies which fail to recognize the body’s own tissue and attack it as though it were a foreign infection. In this case, the antibodies are said to be attacking the thyroid, and this may lead to hypothyroidism. Young people from two villages were tested. One of these villages was heavily contaminated, while the other escaped with negligible contamination. No significant difference in thyroid function was found, but the young people from the contaminated village were five times more likely to have developed anti-thyroid gland antibodies than their counterparts.

There is some controversy about the finings of the various research projects addressing the environmental and health effects of Chernobyl, but the one thing that emerges crystal clear is the importance of continuing medical research. There are several reasons why this research is vital for the people living in the affected areas. Firstly, better understanding of the health effects of radiation exposure is essential for accurate diagnosis, and appropriate treatment. Secondly, and perhaps equally important, the better the understanding of the health effects, the easier it is to provide convincing reassurance to the residents of the affected area, whose health has suffered enormously from the psychological effects of living with contamination. Another good case for extensive medical research is the sad fact that it will very likely prove vital for the victims of future nuclear accidents. Aside from this, terrible though it may sound, it is also a unique opportunity for medical research, which may bear all sorts of unexpected fruit.

Psychological and Social effects 

Radioactive contamination is an invisible aura. The meadows around Chernobyl are teaming with wildlife. Wild boar, bison, wolves, foxes and all kinds of rare birds roam through the wild flowers. Old women pick berries and mushrooms in the forest and sell them by the roadside. The rivers team with fish that have been allowed to grow unhooked to over ten feet long. At first glance it could be the Garden of Eden, for radiation is not only invisible, it cloaks itself in nature. Around Chernobyl, nature is protected from man by contamination. But you can feel that something is horribly wrong. Radiation has an evil aura, which is partly physical and partly perceived, but both are equally real. The physical aspect is the irradiated particles which release energy in the process of decay, which can damage living tissue. The perceived aspect is the feeling of being surrounded by an invisible danger that we know can harm us but that we do not understand. This feeling is shared by more than seven million people and is as harmful as the physical effects of radiation exposure.

One of the most important factors pertaining to the psychosocial effects of the accident on the affected population is the quality of the public information. The Soviet Union has left these people with a deep mistrust of the authorities. In Chernobyl itself, information about the seriousness of the accident was withheld for weeks, while children played outdoors exposing themselves to radiation. In the town of Pripyat, just a mile or so from the reactor, 36 hours passed before residents were told that there was any sort of danger. A teacher took her class of small children out onto the bridge to watch the distant firemen as they struggled to control the chaos at the leaking reactor. Thos children have all developed thyroid carcinomas.

Not surprisingly, people in the region have very little faith in public information, particularly information about their own safety. People do not trust radiation safety labels on food products; they do not trust any home produce; they do not trust the authorities. Even people in very mildly contaminated areas who are not at risk from radiation-related health problems, believe that they are in danger, and live in fear. Every illness and abnormality is blamed on Chernobyl, and people are often afraid to have children. Women who have moved away from the Chernobyl region often try to keep their former home a secret for fear that men will not wish to marry them. Limited knowledge of the long-term effects of exposure to radiation, along with a general distrust of public information and the inevitable rumours of hideous ailments and genetic mutants, have induced psychological trauma and prolonged panic in the hearts and minds of millions of people.

Economic Effects

Apart from the obvious enormous cost of emergency relief and relocation, the accident has also taken a massive toll on the region’s ability to create wealth. Once the breadbasket of the Soviet Union, the affected areas, particularly in Ukraine, include what was once the most fertile land in the USSR. When Hitler invaded this area – the Barbarossa Operation - he described it as “the finest soil in the world”. The region which once provided food for people throughout the Soviet Union, is now reduced to importing everything. No one claims that if it were not for Chernobyl the area would be an economic miracle, but it is undeniable that the disaster has had a devastating impact on the economy. Today, even safe food products grown in the area are virtually impossible to sell because nobody trusts that they are safe. The affected region also includes an immense area of forest, which is now contaminated. Timber was once a sort of hard currency in this region, but

it, too, is now impossible to sell. These difficulties leave the various governments with massive and ever-increasing trade deficits, and consequently fewer and fewer funds for the huge clean-up and resettlement projects.

Environmental Effects

A total area of 155,000 km2 is still contaminated with the dangerous radioactive isotopes Cesium-137 and Strontium-90, which have long radioactive half-lives (30 and 29 years) and will continue to threaten the environment throughout most of the next century. The affected area consists a vast  forests and prime agricultural land. In Ukraine alone, more that a million hectares of forest are contaminated. The forests and farmland together constituted the livelihood of the people. They are now effectively barren.

As well as cultivated crops, wild food sources are also contaminated berries, mushrooms, fish and game are all a threat to life. As radio nuclides slowly penetrate the soil they filter down into the water-table and poison the rivers and lakes. The threat of radioactive pollution looms over the Dnepr River in Ukraine, which is the water supply for several – some say 50 - million people.

Persisting Dangers of Further Radioactive Contamination

Even in areas where clean-up operations have been successful, or where people have been satisfactorily resettled, this is not the end of the story, as there are still a number of ways in which recontamination might occur.

Flooding

If the plain on which the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant strands were to flood, radio nuclides settled in the topsoil could be washed into the Pripyat River and Dnepr reservoirs, the main water supply for millions of people.

Contaminated Waste Dumps

Wherever clean-up operations have been mounted, there are burial sites for contaminated waste. These are not always as deep or as safe as they should be, and need to be very carefully monitored. There is a real danger that radioactive particles could be washed down into the groundwater and thus contaminate rivers and water supplies.

Contaminated Forests and Forest Fires

Dangerous levels of radioactive contamination have been measured in huge areas of forest land. One major cause for concern is the risk of forest fires, which would send clouds of smoke carrying radioactive material into the atmosphere, leaving us once again at the mercy of the winds.