The long shadow of Chernobyl
Gerd Ludwig
National Geographic
April 26, 2006 marked the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl accident. At 1:23 am, the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant’s Reactor #4 blew up after operators botched a safety test, triggering the world’s worst nuclear disaster. Twenty years later, the long shadow of Chernobyl continues to darken lives – socially, environmentally, and physically. A recent United Nations report claims that as the result of the disaster an estimated four thousand people will eventually succumb to cancer-related illnesses. But Greenpeace and other environmental organizations have accused this report of whitewashing Chernobyl’s impact and state that the most recent published figures indicate that in Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine, 200 000 people died between 1994 and 2000 as a result of the accident. The Chernobyl Power Plant, located 65 miles northwest of the Ukrainian capital of Kiev, sits inside a fenced area known as the Exclusion Zone. Radioactive remnants of the failed reactor continue to smolder inside the so-called sarcophagus, a concrete and steel encasement hastily erected after the accident. Leaky and structurally unsound, it now threatens to collapse and shake loose enough radioactivity to cause a second disaster of similar magnitude. Desperate efforts are underway to shore up the western wall of the sarcophagus and protect its roof from collapsing. Inside, radiation levels are so high that workers are only allowed one shift of 15 minutes per day. After years of planning and negotiations, work will start on a new encasement, designed to slide over the existing sarcophagus to seal in the remaining nuclear fuel at an estimated cost of 800 million dollars.
Preview
In the 1970s, the town of Prypyat was constructed for the plant’s personnel, less than two miles away from the reactor. Thirty-six hours after the nuclear accident, Prypyat’s 50 000 inhabitants were evacuated. Once a beautiful town by Soviet standards, today it is a chilling ghost town; dolls are scattered on the floors of abandoned kindergartens; musty cardboard pictures of Soviet heroes rot in empty school rooms; children’s cots are littered with shreds of mattresses and pillows; in a gymnasium where teens once trained, floors rot and paint peels; and massive levels of radiation linger in abandoned graveyards. Amidst the surrounding decay, nature is rebounding: in dozens of abandoned villages within the Exclusion Zone, trees grow through broken windows, ivy seizes collapsing homes, and stray dogs – looking more like wolves – maraud for food. Ignoring radiation levels, some 400 elderly people have returned to their homes. At first Ukrainian officials discouraged them, but they soon turned a blind eye and are now even providing them with regular medical check-ups. To make a buck, clever business people started delivering imported food supplies to the villagers, who otherwise grow most of their food in radioactive soil. Still finding themselves surrounded by devastation and isolation, many of the elderly returnees have turned to heavy drinking. Every spring, former residents are allowed to visit the abandoned villages for a day. Following a Russian tradition, they spend most of the day picnicking at the graves of their loved ones and decorating the gravestones. As midnight approaches, candlelight vigils and memorial services are held for the victims of the blast. 70% of the fallout drifted into southern Belarus, contaminating nearly a quarter of that country. Doctors there still detect a much higher frequency of thyroid anomalies. A liquidator, who jeopardized his health when employed to dismantle contaminated houses after the accident, is suffering from thyroid cancer and has since undergone three operations. As a direct response to the accident, Belarus established a children’s cancer facility in Minsk with aid from Austria and Germany. Women who were exposed to the fallout as children, still fear giving birth to unhealthy babies and worry about how radiation may have affected their genes. The public strongly believes that birth defects and retardation soared after Chernobyl. However, several in the scientific community question that these anomalies are directly attributed to the disaster. Yet noted scientist, Alexei Okeanov, has described the health effects of the accident as “a fire that can’t be put out in our lifetime.” When the thawing of bureaucratic barriers in Ukraine enabled me to venture deeper into the Chernobyl reactor than any other Western photographer, I was well aware that this exploration was not without personal risk. But I also knew that the calculated chances I took were on behalf of unwitting and otherwise voiceless victims – they had the courage and grace to allow me to document their suffering solely in the hope that tragedies like Chernobyl be prevented in the future.
Gerd Ludwig, September 2006
