CHERNOBYL'S

SHADOWBv DAVID MARPLES

38 The Bulletin ofthe Atomic Scientists

The nuclear disaster at Chernobyl hasbeen the subject of books, articles, dra-mas, and films. The Apnl 26,1980, acci-dent spurred protest movements and

jump-started political parties, new govern-ment agencies, and charitable institutions. Itwas also regarded as a key factor in the devel-opment of glasnost in Mikhail Gorbachev's So-viet Union. But after millions of words, thereis no agreement on the ultimate outcome ofthe event.

The collapse ofthe Soviet Union and the for-mation of independent states has further com-plicated the issue—the new governments areunable to meet the myriad costs of the acci-dent and have only recently begun to coordi-nate their actions. Meanwhile, tensions be-tween Ukraine and Russia over a number ofpolitical and economic issues have not helped.

More than seven years after the accident,what do we know about the effects ofthe dis-aster at Chernobyl? Can one make a definitivestatement about its consequences? What hashappened to the nuclear plant itself and the ii'-radiated zone around it? Have there been ra-diation-related illnesses among the popula-tion? And what are the current casualty fig-ures? With these questions in mind, I madeseveral trips to Belaiois and Ukraine in 1992and 1998 to talk to scientists and concernedcitizens, to visit hospitals, and to gather infor-mation from local libraries. I discussed relatedissues with politicians and the heads of someof the more prominent charitable organiza-tions. I had last visited the Chernobyl nuclearpower plant and the Center for RadiationMedicine in Kiev in 1989.

With the benefit of hindsight, the April 28-June 80, 1986, evacuations ofthe 80-kilometerzone around the reactor are now known tohave been grossly inadequate (although thecomplete emptying of the reactor city ofPripyat was efficient and necessai^). The ra-dioactive plume from the burning reactor atChernobyl moved north and then west, spread-ing radioactive iodine across two-thirds of Be-larus and on into Poland and Sweden. Longer-lived radioisotopes such as cesium 137 andstrontium 90 were dispersed over a very widearea—some 100,000 square kilometers. Russiawas most widely affected by the fallout path,but the most dangerous fallout was in Belai'usand immediately around the Chernobyl reac-tor in Ukj'aine.

For three years, infoiination about the ex-

David Marples is professor of history at theUniversity of Alberta in Edinonton, Canada.

Only in 1989 did the people of Belarus learn the fullextent of contaminat ion. Here, a September 1989protest in Minsk. NOVOSH-Y IVANOV

tent of Chernobyl's effects was withheld bySoviet authorities. Early stories in regionalnewspapers such as Pravda Ukrainy in Kievor Sovetskaya Belorussia in Minsk were exer-cises in Soviet doublespeak.

The accident had been "contained/' wentthe party line. The only long-term effectwould be an estimated 200 excess cancerdeaths over the next several decades—andthey would be impossible to differentiate fromother cancer-related mortalities. Only 81 peo-ple had died. The farmland in the affectedareas in Kiev and Gomel provinces wouldsoon be returned to cultivation {a statementsupported by Hans Blix, the director-generalofthe International Atomic Energy Agency[IAEA] in Vienna). The government hadacted promptly and efficiently in dealing withthe evacuation, decontamination, and the seal-ing of the fourth reactor.

Incredibly, by October 1,1986, the Chernobylstation was back in partial operation. Today,even the most avid of Ukraine's proponents ofnuclem" enei-gj' condemn the decision to go backon line as a propaganda ploy to convince theworki that there would be no long-term after-effects of the accident.

In May 198fi, militai-y resei'vists replaced vol-unteer cleanup crews — a decision that wouldmake it next to impossible for futui'e re-searchers to learn more about the effects of ra-diation on cleanup workers. None of the orig-inal military reservists were officially regis-tered. The Ministi^ of Defense, when confi-ont-ed with names compiled from unofficial sources,denied that particular individuals had been inthe zone. Workers' illnesses were never at-tributed to radiation. President Gorbachev saidlittle about Chernobyl, other than to refer tothe "heaps of lies" that were appearing in theWestern press. He did not visit Chernobyluntil almost a year after the event. Yet docu-ments publish'ed in 1992 and 1998 by AliaYaroshinskaya, a journalist and former Sovietpeople's deputy, show that Goi'bachev was inti-mately involved in discussions about the ef-fects of Chernobyl and about the plant's prob-lems. He also authorized the classification of allmedical information; access was restricted tothe Soviet leadership and to health authorities.

Several months after the accident, the de-stroyed foui'th reactor at Chernobyl was cov-ered with a concrete shell or tomb called thesarcophagus which, authorities declared,would last "for eternity." It began showingsigns of disintegi-ation within five years.

By August 1986, the Soviet nuclear authori-ties had also provided an account of the disas-ter to the IAEA in Vienna. The plant's opera-tors—who had dismantled seven protectivemechanisms at the reactor during a safety testthat ended in a partial meltdown—were

Early reports-that theaccident was"contained,"that only 31people died,that farmlandwould berestored—were Sovietdoublespeak.

September 1993 39

In 1989,Pravdarevealed that40 percentof Belarus and14 percentof Ukrainehad beencontaminated.

blamed. In July 1987, the plant's director andchief engineer, along with four others, wereput on trial and given stiff sentences. The hap-less manager, Viktor Bryukhanov, had noteven been there at the time; but when he ar-rived at the scene on the morning of April 26,he failed to realize that the reactor itself hadbeen destroyed.

Chernobyl was a Soviet-designed gi-aphite-moderated (RBMK) power reactor; the designwas never exported. The RBMK design waspioneered at the Sosnovyi Bor station near St.Petersbui'g, and Chernobyl was the secondsuch plant to be constructed. (Its Russian twinis at Kursk.) KGB archives reveal thatthroughout the 1970s, scientists were con-cerned about station flaws, from the com-bustible bitumen on its roof to serious faultswith the control rods that had been manufac-tm-ed wnth shortened tips. There had beenseveral minor accidents before 1986, and theRBMK was known to be unstable when oper-ated at low power.

The report to the IAEA referred only glanc-ingly to these flaws. In fact, the Soviet author-ities were proud of the reactor. But ValeryLegasov, first deputy director ofthe Kurcha-tov Institute of Atomic Energy and the headofthe Soviet delegation to the IAEA, had be-come bitterly disillusioned by the Soviet fail-ure to confront the flaws. He committed sui-cide on April 27,1988, the second anniversaryof Chernobyl. The St. Petersburg plant suf-fered a serious accident in 1991. The Ukraini-an authorities, after imposing a five-yearmoratorium on new reactors in 1990, an-nounced that the Chernobyl station itselfwould be pemianently yhut down by 1995. TheG-7 countries also condemned the RBMK asinherently dangerous.

EvacuationA week after the Chernobyl accident, approxi-mately 135,000 people had been evacuated,about 90,000 from northern Ukraine and45,000 from southern Belarus. They had livedin the zone created by drawing an imaginaiycircle with a 30-kilometer radius, with Cher-nobyl as the center. They were moved byorder of Politburo members Nikolai Ryzhkovand Yegor Ligachev. The evacuation waslengthy and disorderly and took until June tocomplete, mainly because there were few loca-tions or housing available for resettlement.

For the next three years, there was abizarre belief in the Soviet Union that thefence around the evacuated area somehowmarked the outer limits of radioactive fallout.No restrictions were imposed, for example, onfishing in the Kiev Reservoir, or on collectingberries and mushrooms in the forests of Gomel

province to the north. Somewhat arbitrarily,the official tolerance level for radiation was setat 35 rem over a natural 70-year lifespan, or0.5 additional rem per year over the naturalbackground. Environmentalists argued thatthe figure ignored the amount of radiation theresidents had received during the first daysafter the disaster.

By 1989, Pravda issued the first maps ofthefallout ai-ea, and in the republics, the newspa-pers followed suit. The maps showed that thecontaminated region was much wider thanpreviously thought, accounting for more than40 percent of the total area of Belarus andabout 14 percent of that in Ukraine. (Russia'saffected area was large, but it was still a smallpercentage ofthe area ofthe vast Russian re-public.) Each republic's government wasobliged to establish committees to deal withthe effects of Chernobyl. In Ukraine, the par-liament created a commission for Chernobylheaded by Volodymyr Yavorivsky, a Rukh(Popular Front) party activist. The ministryfor Chernobyl was led by Heorhi Hotovchits,formerly a Communist Party leader in Zhy-tomry province, one of the most contaminatedzones.

About 28,000 square kilometers of territoryhad been contaminated with more than fivecuries of cesium per square kilometer. Of thetotal, 16,520 square kilometers (59 percent)were in Belarus, 8,120 square kilometers (29percent) in Russia, and 3,420 (12.2 percent) inUkraine. Belarus had the most senous cesiumcontamination, with 3,100 square kilometers ofland with more than 40 curies of cesium persquare kilometer. Ukraine had only 640 squarekilometers and Russia 310 square kilometerswith the same degi-ee of contamination.

Today, Ukraine has completely evacuatedits population from its most dangerous region.But in Helanis, 22 settlements remain in high-ly contaminated areas, and in Russia, eight. Inthe spring of 1993, about 70.000 people in Be-lainis were still awaiting evacuation, accordingto P]vgeni Kanoplya, director ofthe Instituteof Radiobiology of the BelaiTJssian Academy ofSciences, and the chief scientific investigatorinto the effects ofthe disaster.

The problems created by the Chernobyldisaster are overwhelming. In Belarus, asidefrom the illnesses directly attributable to ra-diation, a glance at the official picture showsthe scale of the predicament. By 1990, 27towns and 2,697 villages with a total popula-tion of iibout two million had suffered radioac-tive fallout.

Between 1986 and 1989, 257,000 hectares ofland in Gomel and Mogilev provinces weretaken out of agricultural production because ofcontamination. More than 1.2 million hectaresof forest were contaminated—20 percent of

40 The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

the total forest reserve. Immediate measureswere taken to evacuate 24,700 people from theBragin, Narovlya and Khoiniki districts ofGomel province, and almost 10,000 apartmentswere hastily constructed for these first evac-uees. More than 900 million rubles (in 1989prices) were spent on road construction andrepairs, and another 500 million on social ser-vices for the evacuees.

Farms taken out of production or evacuatedhad produced about 40,600 tons of grain,49,000 tons of potatoes, 8,600 tons of meat, andalmost 40,000 tons of milk annually in the early1980s. From 1986 to 1989, over 600 settle'-ments were decontaminated, 214 cattle breed-ing farms had to replace their stock, morethan 4,{)0() buildings were destroyed, and morethan 250,000 hectares of land were treatedwith high acidity liming to help prevent topsoilwind erosion, thus lessening the potentialspread of radiation. In addition to this pro-gram, the population had to be supplied withuncontaminated food and water. In the firsttwo months after Chernobyl, more than 8,000shallow wells had to be cleansed, and variousdeep artesian pools were linked to city waternetworks because the sources of existingwater supplies, rivers and reservoirs, werecontaminated. The scale ofthe problem is rem-iniscent of the rebuilding after the German-Soviet war. In Belarus—the chief homeland ofthe legendary Soviet partisans^the twoevents are often compared.

RepercussionsThe Chei-nobyl disaster had far-reaching polit-ical and economic consequences. In Ukraine,the most politically organized of the affectedregions, Chernobyl played a key role in theformation of the Popular Movement and theGreen World environmental group and its po-litical branch, the Green Party. In 1990,through Green Party efforts, a widespreadprotest against the development of nucleai- en-ergy in Ukraine led the government to de-clare a five-year moratorium on commission-ing new nuclear reactors. In Belarus, a Popu-lar Front party emerged, in part as a protestagainst official secrecy over Chernobyl. Theentire Soviet nuclear power program, one ofthe most ambitious in the world, was broughtto a halt. Plans for the constniction of 60 new-reactors were postponed or canceled as a re-sult of public protests.

But the collapse ofthe Soviet Union createda paradox. It slowed progr'ess in dealing withthe effects of Chernobyl and created energyshortages that have strengthened the nuclearpower lobby today. Russia has announced anambitious nuclear program to preserve itsvaluable oil and gas reserves as sources of hard

currency eai-nings. Its neighbors, Ukraine andBelarus, which are heavily dependent on Rus-sian energy sources, have wavered on the nu-clear power question. But there is powerfulsupport to go the nuclear route.

The Chernobyl plant itself remains in opera-tion. A second reactor has been decommis-sioned, but plans to shut down the station en-tirely by the end of this year have beenshelved. Belarus has introduced a scheme tobuild its first two nuclear power stations, to bebased on foreign technology. Neither Belarusnor Uki-aine has adequate funds to deal withthe effects of Chernobyl.

In 1991, the sarcophagus encasing the dam-aged reactor began to collapse. Studies werehastily conducted by the Ukrainian NuclearSafety Inspectorate by the spring of 1992.Since it had no domestic resources, Ukrainedecided to hold an international competitionfor a new and safe design. The winning entry,selected from thousands, came from Cam-pegnon Bei-nard, a French firm. However, itis still unclear how a new covering is to be fi-nanced. Some Ukrainian scientists have criti-cized Chernobyl's continued operation whileradiation levels around the plant remain highand while the sarcophagus issue remains un-resolved.

HealthQuestions about the long-term health conse-quences of Chernobyl's widespread radiationhave been controversial from the outset.Could one predict the number of fatal cancersby measuring the levels of radiation in the air01" soil? Could one predict the ultimate num-bers of likely casualties (estimates of whichhave varied from 200 to 500,000)? There wasalso disagreement about the numbers of earlycasualties caused by direct exposure. The offi-cial Soviet figure was 81 (including twodeaths unrelated to Chernobyl at the time ofthe explosion), and the number was never in-creased despite documented evidence of sub-sequent deaths from direct contact with Cher-nobyl radiation. Some 5,000 decontaminationworkers had died by the fall of 1990, accord-ing to estimates by local Ukrainian officials,while the Chernobyl Union, whose member-ship is made up of cleanup crew personnel, es-timated from their records that 7,000 of theirnumber had died. There is no way to deter-mine which figure is closer to the truth.

Collaboration among the respective govera-ments and the formei- Soviet authorities mightyield more precise information about early ca-sualties. But neither collaboration nor figureshave been forthcoming, and the newly inde-pendent states are in no position to provide ac-curate statistics. Foi'mer cleanup workers and

The CheraobylUnion, whosemembersserved oncleanup crews,estimates that7,000 cleanupworkers havedied.

September 1993 41

By 1990-91,there had beena five-foldincrease in therate of thyroidcancers inchildren.

many evacuees are difficult to trace. Somewere in the zone for only 30 days. Moreover,many cleanup workers have died from heartattacks, more likely caused by intense stressrather than by the direct effects of radiation.One medical investigation in Ukraine also re-vealed that many workers, mainly men under40, were suffering from sexual problems,specifically a loss of libido. Others have suf-fered unknown and evidently incurable skindiseases.

Some medical authorities have been reluc-tant to attribute any illnesses to radiation. Forexample, in late 1992, Dr. Evgeni P. Ivanov, di-rector of the Institute of Hematology at theBelai'us Academy of Sciences, after complet-ing a study ofthe subject, declai-ed confidentlythat there had been no rise in the number ofleukemias in the republic. As the assessmentappeared to be somewhat premature, I triedto interview Dr. Ivanov during my visit toMinsk, but none of his staff could determinehis whereabouts and he declined to respond totelephone calls. A similar kind of assessmentwas made in May 1991 by IAEA researcherswho also concluded (without examiningcleanup crews or evacuees) that no significantmedical effects were thus far discernible.

A possible increase in the rate of thyroidcancer was also dismissed. A 1991 IAEA re-port concluded: "No abnormalities in eitherthyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) or thyroidhormone (free T4) were found in children ex-amined. No statistically significant differencewas found between surveyed contaminatedand surveyed control settlements for any agegroup."' It would be hard to imagine a moremisinformed conclusion. By 1990-91, the ap-pearance of thyroid tumors among children inthe contaminated zones had made a suddenand dramatic appearance, increasing in Be-larus by more than five times between 1989and 1990, according to the Institute of Radia-tion Medicine's authorities. If this was un-known to the IAEA team, it suggests a lack ofcommunication with the proper authorities.

In April 1993, I interviewed Dr. EvgeniDemidchik, director of the Thyroid TumorClinic in Minsk. He has conducted the mostdetailed study ofthe development of thyroidtumors in Belanis, a study that began in 1966when thyroid cancer was a rare disease. Afterthe Chernobyl disaster, he began to see amarked rise in childhood thyroid cancers. Therise began in 1990 and has continued.

By 1998, Demidchik had found more than200 cases. In the two decades before Cher-nobyl, Belarus averaged less than one case peryear. Moreover, virtually all of the cases camefi-om the most contaminated regions. Over GOpercent, for example, ai-e from the affectedparts of Gomel, and about 30 percent are from

the eastem part of Brest province (around thetown of Pin.sk), which was seriously contami-nated by radioactive iodine in the first daysafter the disaster. All the children were bornshortly before or during the time ofthe Cher-nobyl disaster. There is a clear correlation be-tween these cancers and Chernobyl-producedradiation.-

(One curiosity, however, was the low num-bers of such cancers in the Mogilev region inthe northeast. Demidchik explained that inMogilev, the local health officials had promptlyissued potassium iodide tablets to the children,an initiative that may have prevented thespread of cancers.)

Demidchik says thyroid tumors are highlyaggi-essive and the cancer spreads rapidly toother parts ofthe body; one child has alreadydied. The tumor must be discovered and re-moved at an early stage. The procedure prac-ticed in Belanis involves the removal of onlythe affected area, not the entire thyroid gland.which is the common practice in the West.

Some children have been sent to Germanyfor medical treatment, but Demidchik favorshome-based treatment because the childrenmust be monitored for life.

In addition to thyroid cancer, there also hasbeen a significant rise in general morbidityamong children. Radiation specialists havecited persistent neuropsychic disturbances,various types of dystonias, anemia, chronicrespiratory problems, and chronic diseases ofthe digestive system. The vast majority ofthese ailments have occurred in the heaviest-hit Gomel and Mogilev regions.

The effects of low-level radiation are notwell known. For instance, it is not known if theunexpectedly high rate of juvenile diabetes(generally thought to be hereditary) that hawappeared in Belarus is radiation-related. Inone area of Gomel, reseai-chers have estimatedthat more than 50 percent ofthe ])opulation issuffering from psychological disturbances, andindeed, stress levels are pailicularly high. TheIAEA study noted that evacuation is a primecause of increased stress. This stress is exac-erbated first by the lack of suitable new hous-ing and also by the scarcity of jobs in new set-tlement areas.

The provincial and district authorities in theBrest l-egion—one ofthe areas where seriouscontamination was discovered late—havecomplained that Gomel, the "center of contam-ination," has received all the foreign aid andimprovements to health facilities, while Brestlacks doctors and modern medical care.

CharitiesGiven the uncertainty and the scope of medi-cal problems, it is not surprising that the re-

42 The Bulletin ofthe Atomic Scientists

publics have been heavily dependent on chari-table aid from foreign sources for medicaltreatment and equipment. Before the collapseof the former Soviet Union, most aid waschanneled though Moscow, and much of itfailed to reach its destination. Many aidgi'oups operated duplicate programs. In 1990,for instance, there were l-'i officially registeredcharitable organizations in Belanjs. Occasion-ally the communist-dominated governmentcreated organizations with the same name or aname similar to that of an unofficial group,possibly to divert funds into its own coffers.Today, most ofthe aid is directed to children,and "Children of Chernobyl" is the most pop-ular name for charitable institutions in theUnited States, Belanis, and Ukraine.

How effectively is the aid being used? First-hand evidence suggests that it has become avital component of each of the republic'shealth systems, even for illnesses that may notbe related to Chernobyl.

Many medical facilities have Western equip-ment. For instance, the Center for RadiationMedicine in Kiev has equipment from theUnited States, and the Hospital for Sick Chil-dren in Minsk has German equipment. One en-terprising charity in Minsk has devoted itselfto alleviating the problems of psychologicalstress and various ailments (including the ef-fects of radiation) by organizing one- and two-month summer trips abroad for children fromthe contaminated zones.

Under the auspices ofthe Belarussian Char-itable Fund for the Children of Chernobyl,more than 30,000 children have taken thesetrips, many of them over the objections oftheauthorities, who have tried in vain to controlthem. The mainly communist-dominated au-thorities originally had their own program tosend children abroad, mostly to places likeCuba. These efforts were unsuccessful mainlybecause the host countries were not well pre-pared. The authorities have hindered the ef-forts ofthe unofficial associations, who tend tosolicit help from the advanced capitalist na-tions ofthe West.

Nearly seven and a half years later, Cher-nobyl's effects on health are beginning to bemanifest. The virtual epidemic of childhoodthyroid cancer seen in Belarus has also begunto appear in Ukraine, leading medical authori-ties to predict an increase in leukemias andother cancers in the future. Current healthproblems are probably the result of exposureto radioactive iodine (iodine 131, with a half-

life of eight days): meanwhile, the probiemscaused by longer-lived cesium and strontiumradioisotopes in the soil, which have begun topenetrate the food chain, have yet to ap-pear—although they almost certainly will.Major problems may arise in unprotectedareas or among the elderly, who have general-ly refused to take precautions and have con-tinued to grow their own food since the disas-ter. The 600,000 cleanup workers represent asource of concern still to be thoroughly inves-tigated. And the majority of evacuees do notappear to be listed on official registers. In1990, a computer disk containing an evacueelist was stolen.

The sui-prising sui'ge of thyroid tumors sug-gests that the medical world is entering an un-known and uncharted realm in dealing withChernobyl. The consequences are more seri-ous than anticipated, and they come at a timewhen the newly independent states are leastequipped to deal with them economically. Oneeconomist noted that, given the cuiTent esti-mated costs of Chernobyl, it would take thegovernment of Belarus 180 years to pay forthem. Yet Chernobyl has become a secondaryconcern to governments that lack energy re-sources for the coming winter and are desper-ately introducing deep economic reforms inthe hope of obtaining international credits.

Finally, researchers worldwide have dis-agreed over different aspects of the results ofthe Chernobyl disaster, sometimes deridingthe public response as emotional or "radiopho-bic." In fact, the question ofthe psychologicalimpact remains to be decided. And since Cher-nobyl appears to have been a tragedy withouta precedent, its results are unpredictable. IfWestern scientists are to continue to provideassistance to their counterparts in the formerSoviet Union, they should discard their mis-conceptions on the likely effects of radiation.Chernobyl is a disaster that is becoming moremanifest, not less, with time. It has been atragedy for Russia, Belai-us, and Ukraine, andit remains the dominant nuclear event ofthepast four decades.

The end of the Soviet regime has made thesituation more complex. Many technical spe-cialists have left the republics and returned toRussia, and there is a continuing fear of livingin a contaminated zone. But above all, the focushas been on the affected children—the futuregenerations for Belaiiis and Ukraine. Whatev-er the reality, the perception is that Chernobylcasts a shadow over an entire generation. •

Chernobyl isa disasterthat isbecomingmore manifest,not less,with time.

1. International Atomic Energy Agency, The Inter-national Chernobyl Project: An Overmew: Assessmentitf Rmlliilogicat Consequences a)id Evaluation of Pro-lective Measures. Vienna; International Atomic EnergyAgency. 1991, p. 10.

2. Vasilly S. Kazakov, et.al., "Thyroid Cancer AfterCheraobyl," Nnfiiiv. vol. 359. (Sept. 8, li)f)2). pp. 21-22;and Davit! R. Mai"ples. "A CoiTelation Between Radia-tion anil Health Problems in Belarus?" Poi^t-Snviet Ge-ography, vol. 35. no. 5 (May 1998), pp. ii81-292.

September 1993 43