Darragh McKeon - All That Is Solid Melts into Air

Even leaving aside Bandazhevsky’s findings, the pattern of evidence in the regions most affected by Chernobyl has made clear that chronic low-dose exposure leads to diseases of the circulatory systems, the endocrine system, the immune system, the respiratory system; to reproductive disorders; to changes in the composition of bones; to brain damage; to blindness; to congenital malformations and abnormalities; to thyroid cancer; to leukaemia; to intensified infections; to organ failures (especially to foetuses irradiated in utero); to premature aging; to gene mutations; to “Chernobyl AIDS, Chernobyl Heart, Chernobyl Limbs” and “Vegetovascular dystonia.” These latter names are a catchall for a variety of new syndromes that medical specialists have only come across in the post-Chernobyl years. The symptoms are so varied and diverse that doctors are obliged to group them under relatively generic names. [15] Nesterenko, Nesterenko, and Yablokov, Chernobyl , 320–322.

Bandazhevsky’s findings are highly threatening to the nuclear establishment because every nuclear reactor routinely vents radioactive gases into the atmosphere. This “venting” is not an aberration of procedure; instead it is planned, sanctioned, and systematic.

In most cases, about one hundred cubic feet of radioactive gases are released hourly from the condensers at any given reactor. If a reactor is temporarily shut down because of a mechanical malfunction, the ventings increase in frequency and scale. [16] Helen Caldicott, Nuclear Power Is Not the Answer (New York: The New Press, 2006), 54–55.

Though radiation is also a naturally occuring phenomenon, the type of long-lived radionuclides emitted from nuclear reactors—such as Caesium-137—are new to us as a species. They didn’t exist on Earth in any appreciable quantities during the entire evolution of complex life and are millions of times more poisonous than naturally occuring radionuclides.

Again, Professor John Gofman can be relied upon to shine clarity on the overall situation:

Licensing a nuclear power plant is in my view, licensing random premeditated murder…. It is not a question any more: radiation produces cancer, and the evidence is good all the way down to the lowest doses. [17] Leslie Freeman, Nuclear Witness (London: W. H. Norton and Co., 1982).

In 2006, the deputy head of the Ukrainian National Commission for Radiation Protection, Dr. Nikolai Omelyanets, stated:

We have found that infant mortality increased 20% to 30% because of chronic exposure to radiation after the accident. All this information has been ignored by the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] and the WHO [World Health Organisation]. [18] John Vidal, “UN Accused of Ignoring 500,000 Chernobyl Deaths,” The Guardian , March 24, 2006.

In 1989 it was typical for Ukrainian children in heavily contaminated areas to have major organ difficulties associated with hormonal or immune imbalance. By 1996, these had turned chronic and untreatable. [19] E. Stepanova, V. Kondrashova, T. Galitchanskaya, and V. Vdovenko, “Immune Deficiency Status in Prenatally Irradiated Children,” Haemat 10 (1998): 25.

By 2004, morbidity rates among Ukrainian adults and teenagers in heavily contaminated areas was 573 per 1,000. [20] Nesterenko, Nesterenko, and Yablokov, Chernobyl , 38. By 2011, only 5 to 10 percent of children in these regions were considered to be healthy. [21] Dr. Evgenia Stepanova, interview in Chernobyl Forever , directed by Alain de Halleux (Paris, France: Crescendo Films, 2011), DVD.

By 2004, in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, 99.9 percent of Chernobyl cleanup workers were officially ill. In Sumy province it was 96.5 percent; in Donetsk province it was 96 percent. [22] Nesterenko, Nesterenko, and Yablokov, Chernobyl , 38.

Even in the distant future, the situation is likely to get worse as the genetic effects from the disaster take hold. Research on animals has indicated that after twenty generations of reproduction the resistance to radioactivity amongst those exposed will drop significantly, likely creating even more varied and virulent illnesses in four hundred years’ time. [23] A. I. Il’enko and T. P. Krapivko, “Impact of Ionizing Radiation on Rodent Metabolism,” USSR Academy of Sciences, Biology 1 (1998): 98–106.

All of which doesn’t even take into account the problems associated with nuclear waste storage. Problems of such scale and intricacy that it is irrefutable, even by the nuclear bodies, that for several hundred thousand years each generation of our descendants will be obliged to manage our toxic legacy.

In my hotel room in Minsk, I pack for my flight home. I’ve been told to throw away any clothes I wore in the exclusion zone, so I fold whatever remains into a sports bag. The wallpaper around me is of patterned bricks, with sections where the bricks have fallen away to repeatedly reveal a pastoral farmhouse. On the edge of the scene, a woman throws feed over a picket fence to her chickens. I can’t escape the sense that the management is encouraging me to get away, to take a break from the grinding oppression.

On the TV in the corner a chef cooks a spaghetti carbonara with all the typical decorum of a cookery show, but then he breaks from routine and conscientiously cleans up after himself, using a spray bottle and a soft cloth. He smiles and presents the bottle of oven cleaner to the camera, extolling its virtues.

Alexi drives me back to the airport in his battered grey van. We are alone and silent. He steers with one hand; with the other he clenches a cigarette between his thumb and index finger. The landscape is covered in fog.

“My father was involved in the cleanup.”

I turn to him.

“Chernobyl?”

“Yes.”

“You should have mentioned it. I would have liked to speak to him.”

“He’s not well. He wouldn’t have been able to hold a conversation.”

“How long has he been ill?”

“Seven years. He’s had two heart attacks and a stroke. He’s fifty-six.”

“I’m sorry to hear it.”

“It’s normal. All his friends are sick. They can’t leave their homes. They never see each other.”

“Do you remember that time?”

He flicks the cigarette out the window.

“Not much. I remember being excited about the day he was coming back. I thought he’d bring me home a military belt buckle or something.”

“Have you talked to him about it?”

“Are you kidding me?”

His paleness extends to his demeanour, like all life has been washed out of him.

“What about your friends? When you’re drinking together, do they talk about what they know?”

He keeps his gaze on the road. His head shifts back in an ironic snicker.

“You don’t fucking get it. I’ve probably said the word ‘Chernobyl’ four times in my life.”

H. G. Wells’s predictions are as relevant as ever. Reflecting on The World Set Free in 1921, three years after the end of World War I, sixty-five years before the explosion in Chernobyl, Wells observed that:

Either the disaster has not been vast enough yet or it has not been swift enough to inflict the necessary moral shock and achieve the necessary moral revulsion. Just as the world of 1913 was used to an increasing prosperity and thought that increase would go on forever, so now it would seem the world is growing accustomed to a steady glide towards social disintegration, and thinks that that too can go on continually and never come to a final bump. So soon do use and wont establish themselves, and the most flaming and thunderous of lessons pale into disregard. [24] H. G. Wells, The World Set Free , preface.