Chernobyl, 35 years later: between symbolism and the real consequences of the tragedy

Three and a half decades after the worst nuclear accident in history, the Chernobyl disaster continues in the collective consciousness. Divided between symbolic memory and the real effects that are still being felt in a region of northern Ukraine, very close to the border with Belarus, where last year an arson in the forests of the region caused a peak radiation up to sixteen times above normal levels.

A clear example of this double aspect is the memorial flight that the Ukrainian national airline UIA organized last Sunday over the remains of the nuclear power plant. For a price of around 90 euros, the passengers observed the scene of the drama “from the most unusual angles”, but always respecting a safety standard: the device did not drop below 900 meters in any way. , the minimum authorized limit.

Pripyat, the closest inhabited town to the power plant at the time of the disaster, now exists in a kind of limbo: a ghost town for humans; a possible nature reserve for animals. In fact, and as it has been doing for a few years, The Ukrainian government has reactivated its initiative to get UNESCO to declare the area immediately affected by the disaster, the so-called exclusion zone which covers a radius of 30 kilometers from the remains of the power plant and which includes the city it – even, as Humanity World Heritage. It does so despite the fact that scientific studies have determined that radiation in some areas will take 24,000 years to disappear, if ever.

Photographic reports of the peculiar spectral landscape of Prípiat, full of ruins consumed by the undergrowth, appear alongside new studies on the impact of radiation on the descendants of the survivors of the tragedy and the crops of the region, more soft than what was believed so far in the first case, worse than they thought in the second.

Finally, the public debate oscillates between two other currents: the specter of the former Soviet Union, whose former leaders recall the terrible management of the disaster and its impact on the process of dissolution of the red giant, and the current reality of Security. a nuclear power plant, fueled by another more recent nuclear disaster, such as that of the Japanese power plant in Fukushima in 2011.

“Thirty-five years later, we are still trying to understand the full extent of Chernobyl’s impact on the world. And yet, in a very real sense, we live in a world defined by Chernobyl. There is a truth as simple as it is terrifying: a nuclear accident is a nuclear accident, wherever it is ”Bulletin of Atomic Scientists researcher Mariana Budjeryn explained in her assessment of the tragedy.

THE WORLD OF CHERNÓBIL

It all started at 1:23 a.m. on April 26, 1986, during a scheduled test of the plant’s unit 4 safety system. A power failure, added to a series of operator errors, led to the melting of the unit’s RBMK reactor core, moderated by graphite.

As the reactor was not protected by a containment chamber, the resulting steam explosion tore the roof of the unit and rained pieces of fuel rods and highly radioactive graphite in the surrounding area. The resulting fires generated radioactive smoke that carried contaminated particles over Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, as well as parts of Scandinavia and Europe in general.

According to the official death toll, recognized by the international community, only 31 people died from the immediate aftermath of the explosion, while UN estimates only 50 deaths can be directly attributed to the disaster. In 2005, however, he predicted that a minimum of 4000 could have died from radiation exposure, many of whom are residents of Prípiat, of which 50,000 residents were evacuated never to return.

The actual number of people affected is impossible to know.

Viktor Sushko, deputy director general of the National Research Center for Radiological Medicine (NRCRM) based in Kiev, Ukraine, described Chernobyl as “The greatest man-made disaster in the history of mankind” after estimating that five million citizens of the former Soviet Union, including three million in Ukraine, suffered from the disaster.

Chernobyl continued to generate electricity for 14 years, until international pressure forced it to shut down in 2000. Today, Unit 4 is covered by a dome erected with the help of the international community, while the Ukrainian government has built a nuclear fuel warehouse.

HUMAN AND ECOLOGICAL IMPACT

A study published last Thursday by the magazine Science showed a relatively reassuring result for the descendants of the Chernobyl disaster, and by extension, those of Fukushima. There is no evidence that parents who were exposed to radiation passed on excessive mutations to children conceived after exposure., according to research, one of the most important ever carried out in this field.

“Although the document cannot completely rule out that such effects may occur, the study clearly demonstrates that the risks are significantly lower than currently believed.”, opinó a National Geographic Robert Ullrich, vice-president of the Radiation Effects Research Foundation.

Another study from the team looked at the relationship between the Chernobyl rain and hundreds of cases of thyroid cancer among those exposed. In this regard, the researchers also found that radiation-induced cancers do not have unique “biomarkers” that set them apart.

The impact on the ground is more serious. Late last year, a report from the University of Exeter and the Institute of Agricultural Radiology of Ukraine concluded that crops in areas near Chernobyl still showed signs of contamination.

After analysis of grains of wheat, rye, oats and barley, concentrations of radioactive isotopes (strontium 90 and cesium 137) were found above the official safety limits of Ukraine in near the half of the samples. Three quarters of the wood samples analyzed contained strontium-90 concentrations above the maximum limits set by the Ukrainian government. In an earlier study, researchers found that milk in parts of Ukraine had levels of radioactivity up to five times the country’s official safe limit.

All these results show that Chernobyl, 35 years later, is still an obvious reality. “It was a nuclear event on a global scale before the world went global”, concluded the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, during the conference on nuclear safety and security at the Belfer Center of the Harvard Kennedy School.

Chernobyl promoted a new international regulatory framework, including the Convention on Nuclear Safety or the Convention on Early Notification of Nuclear Accidents, which would take full effect during the Fukushima disaster. But the story continues: the estimated 200 tonnes of radioactive nuclear fuel in Reactor 4 are now protected by the new secure containment. However, parts of the sarcophagus become unstable and will need to be removed at some point.

With information from Europa Press

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