Mission: Chernobyl

Children of Chernobyl

24/10/2005

Nothing is worth getting up at 5:45am for!! William remarked all cranky on the bus to Kiev.

Well William! What about, seeing the images and hearing the stories of Chernobyl vicitms, understanding what was "probably" behind the collapse of the Soviet era in the Ukraine, meeting important people including the ex Minister of the Environment of the Ukraine, networking like there is no tomorrow, putting Greenpeace on the map of the Ukrainian Chernobyl debate...And yeah! Seeing you eat meat for the first time in 25 years. Well, chewing meat by mistake I should say!

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The trip wasn't too bad as we were playing "Spot an Accident" on the way. I don't really believe that they have a traffic system here. I think what they do here is, my Lada before yours!! The streets of Kiev (the Ukraine in general) made the roads in Damascus during rush hour look like a four lane highway in Sweden! We made it alive to Kiev just in time for Rianne's and Jan's meeting with the head of the Institute of Endocrinology.

Meanwhile, the rest of the team visited the Ukrainian National Museum of Chernobyl. I have to admit, most of us were not so enthusiastic about the visit as we would have rather stayed behind and do more "radiation" stuff. On the other hand, Iryna really recommended it and thought it will be a memorable visit for all of us and it will give us another perspective to the accident . . . It certainly was.

The entrance of the museum doesn't really prepare you for what is inside. We climbed on stairs with an apple tree design on the floor, apple trees are the symbol of Chernobyl, and above us were the names of villages around the Chernobyl area.

Visualization was the main concept of the place, the walls of the halls were papered with photos of victims, thousands and thousands of faces that are just looking you in the eye. It was inevitable that one eye will catch yours and either haunt you or change your mind about the accident for ever.

The museum demanded from Ukrainians, Belarussians and Russians (if not all humans) to remember that they were granted the right to live because of the efforts of the fire fighters, soldiers and nuclear workers who fought the unequal fight with the atom, put the fire out and contained the radiation. I immediately thought of my nephew (Ahmed) who wants to be a fire fighter when he grows up, I know he wants to save lives but would he want to put his own life in danger because of leaders and economy builders who MIGHT underestimate the powerfulness of an atom!!

Here is what Rianne had to say about her meeting:

While the others got depressed in the Chernobyl museum, Jan and I met up with the young and beautiful Yulia. She is a translator, and brought us to Professor Kommisarenko, head of the Institute of Endocrinology. He turned out to be a rather small man with a white hat which partly compensates his height. The professor lectured us on thyroid cancer, and presented rather shocking statistics on the increase of thyroid cancer treatment in his institute as a result of the Chernobyl accident.

From 1989 onwards, the number of children diagnosed with thyroid cancer rose from 2-3 cases per year before, to 40-50 cases per year in the nineties. In his institute alone, more people died of aggressive thyroid cancers due to radioactive iodine released during the accident, than the total number of cancer deaths mentioned in the UN reports that were published last September. It was clear to us that these reports presented under headlines like 'Chernobyl not as bad as expected', do not paint the full picture.

After we left the warmhearted professor, Yulia told me she is a 'Chernobyl child' herself. She was '86 two years old and living not far from the exploding reactor. She had an enlarged thyroid, but was lucky not to be diagnosed with cancer.. yet...

In the afternoon Jan, Iryna and I went in our fancy clothes to meet the public board of the State Nuclear Regulatory Committee of the Ukraine. It's a bunch of scientists and ngo's who get to advise the state on nuclear issues. Our meeting turned out to be more of a press conference, with Jan (who to our relief exchanged his sneakers for Omer's funky boots) eagerly stepping in front of four cameras to state the Greenpeace position on the situation around Chernobyl: "Chernobyl is still having an immense impact on the populations in Ukraine and Belarussia, and it would be a major mistake of the Ukranian government not to learn from the mistakes of the past and to decide on the construction of new nuclear reactors."

Two young students, Tanya and Anna, were asked to translate our words into Russian. Very inexperienced and nervous, and they were right to be. First Tanya is dismissed because her voice can not reach the end of the room even with a microphone down her throat. Then Anna, apparently missing the essence of every sentence, is constantly corrected by others, until a member of the board takes over himself. The poor girls ran off and are probably still crying in the toilets...

During the meeting the touchiest and saddest thing happened; a man stood up and started his argument with the words:"I had a daughter. She was 22 when she died of cancer." I could not agree more when he ended with:"We need to tell the scientific truth and stop the expansion of the nuclear industries"!

Back to my museum visit.

In the last hall we visited, the far wall was filled with thousands of pictures of children who have been affected, are being treated or who have died as a result of Chernobyl. They were all so young and so innocent. There lives now wrecked or over.

Another haunting memory was a black and white home video of life in Pripyat, the abandoned town, with weddings going on, children with their mothers going shopping, a normal life although twelve hours previously the reactor had blown up. At one point you could see flashes of white light on the film, this was highly radioactive particles burning into the film as it was being taken!!

Today I learned that the shifts for the Soviet army liquidators lasted for only two minutes. Two minutes and 30 seconds is all it takes for deadly dozes of radiation.

Today I learned that it took 600,000 people to work on the clean up process.

Today I learned that there is still 150 tons of highly radioactive lava buried underneath the Sarcophagus.

Today I learned that the radioactive material still in the reactor can blow up any second.

Today I learned that the "officially" effected zone is twice the size of Luxembourg.

Today I learned that it took the Soviet Union THREE days to mention the accident in the press, and when it did, the mention was on page THREE in an article the size of a small notice of death or a personal ad.

Today I saw the photos of the dead victims.

Today I saw the photos of the dead victims.

Today I saw the photos of the dead victims.

Today I learned that the Ukraine is "thinking" of building 11 new reactors!!

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