EDITORIAL: Chornobyl then and now (04/23/06)

THE 20th ANNIVERSARY OF THE CHORNOBYL NUCLEAR DISASTER

EDITORIAL

Chornobyl then and now

"The main problems are solved ... we don't need any help."

- Vladimir T. Lapitski, counselor of the Permanent Mission of the Ukrainian SSR to the United Nations, speaking on May 5, 1986, about the Chornobyl accident with a delegation composed of Rep. Benjamin Gilman, three Ukrainian American community activists and the editor of The Ukrainian Weekly.

Back in 1986, when we carried the first reports about an unimaginable accident at the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine, the news media were hampered by the Soviet Union's stony silence. In fact, the first reports about a nuclear accident came from Sweden, where authorities detected unusually high levels of radiation.

The official Soviet announcement that there had been an accident at one of its nuclear plants came two days later. "An accident has taken place at the Chornobyl power station, and one of the reactors was damaged. Measures are being taken to eliminate the consequences of the accident. Those affected by it are being given assistance. A government commission has been set up," said the USSR Council of Ministers in a statement read on Moscow television on April 28, 1986. Four days after the accident, Pravda Ukrainy reported: "At the Chornobyl atomic energy station (CAES) there was an accident that led to the ruin of a portion of the building housing the [fourth] reactor and to some release of radioactive materials. As a result of the accident, two people have died. The radiation situation at the CAES, as well as surrounding areas, is stabilized."

Clearly, the USSR was attempting to hide the severity of the disaster by insisting that everything was under control. Indeed, May Day parades went on as usual in Kyiv, even as radiation rained down upon the Ukrainian capital and its unsuspecting people. It was more important for the USSR to give the impression that life was normal than it was to warn the people that they were in danger. The USSR's actions were reprehensible. We wrote back in 1986: "The Soviet Union failed in its international obligation to let its own people know what happened. And, because of this, people will be affected for generations to come."

The Soviets' attempts to hide the truth - no doubt to conceal what would be perceived worldwide as a failure of the Soviet system - and the absence of reliable information resulted in the dissemination of all sorts of false information and rumors; it also led the people of the USSR to even more determinedly question official information and Soviet authority. That presented an outright challenge to General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, who had told the 27th Communist Party Congress in February of 1986 that he wanted to build a more open society.

But, it was only on May 14 - an astounding 18 days after the accident - that Mr. Gorbachev first spoke about what took place at the Chornobyl plant. In a 25-minute speech he reported that nine people had died and 299 had been hospitalized with radiation sickness. He also said, "The most serious consequences [of the accident] have been averted," but added that "the level of radiation in the station's zone and on the territory in the immediate vicinity still remains dangerous for human health."

Now, 20 years after the fact, Chornobyl's consequences are still with us.

According to information released by the Embassy of Ukraine, 2,594,071 residents of Ukraine - almost half of them children - were affected by the catastrophe; a total of 504,117 Ukrainians who were affected by the accident died in the period 1987-2004, among them 34,499 "liquidators" - those sent to battle the accident's "consequences" - and 6,769 children; 48,400 square kilometers of land encompassing 2,218 settlements are contaminated by radiation; and the exclusion zone around the nuclear plant covers a territory of 2,600 square kilometers. Furthermore, Chornobyl Interinform, a Ukrainian government agency, says 3 million people received increased radiation doses and 84 percent of them have since become ill; among the liquidators, the rate is 92 percent.

Two decades after that horrific day in 1986, Chornobyl's effects - medical, environmental, social, psychological - continue to be felt. Contrary to what we were told 20 years ago, the main problems associated with the world's worst nuclear disaster have not been solved and Ukraine does need help.

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