ENVIRONMENT: Chernobyl Debate on Hold, Plant Boils

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Judith Perera

LONDON, Oct 13 1995 (IPS) - Slowly, slowly appears to be the internatio- nal attitude towards determining the future of the Chernobyl nuclear plant which continues to operate in Ukraine despite warnings about its potential health and environmental dangers.

This week, the United Nations postponed until mid-November a General Assembly debate on the future of the plant which had been expected to take place next week.

That debate is to focus on a report of the Secretary General which looks in detail at the health and environmental effects of the 1986 Chernobyl accident and discusses ways to strengthen and increase international relief assistance.

Ukraine continues to run the plant. It is asking for four billion dollars from the West, saying that’s the amount needed to replace capacity and find work for people who would be made unemployed if the plant closed.

“The period from now until 26 April — the tenth anniversary of the accident — represents the last opportunity to get proper international funding for Chernobyl,” explains Grigory Haertl, the United Nations’ Humanitarian Affairs Officer in Geneva.

“The accident took place nine and a half years ago and funding has diminished. We are hoping to revive the issue as one of international importance,” said Haertl.

He hopes that the General Assembly debate will result in acknowledgement by foreign ministers of donor countries that something must be done. He says the most important projects which need funding are health-related.

“It is an absolute priority to get help for the 800,000 clean- up workers who helped after the accident,” says Haertl. “We also need to establish an infrastructure and provide the means for addressing the growing problem of stress-related disease.”

He notes the increase in cardiovascular and gastro-intestinal diseases which appears to be related to the stress and uncertainty of living with radiation.

The report which will provide the basis for the forthcoming debate estimates that over 9 million people have been directly or indirectly affected by the Chernobyl accident which has left more than 160,000 square kilometres contaminated by radiation.

Some 400,000 people have been forced to leave their homes in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia. “Since everything in their homes had been contaminated by radiation they were forced to abandon their homes with only the clothes on their backs,” says the report.

Despite “reassuring” statistics on health effects produced by the International Atomic Energy Agency and the lack of any specific data on increases in cancer so far (except thyroid cancers), people living in affected areas are suffering from “deep-seated anxiety” says the report.

“The stress associated with the uncertainty of living with radiation is exacerbated by the fact that many cancers have a long latency period,” it points out. “Consequently the sentiment that the worst is yet to come is very prevalent.”

Those worst affected are the clean-up workers — thousands of men mostly from the Soviet army employed from 1986 to 1988 to help with preventing radiation leaks from the damaged reactor building.

Many worked inside the reactor building where they were permitted to stay for a maximum of 90 seconds because of the high levels of radiation.

These came from all over the former USSR. In Russia the Chernobyl Union — a major non-governmental organisation — estimates that 10 per cent of the workers have become invalids and that over 7,000 Russian workers have died since the accident from various causes including suicide.

All three affected countries report increase rates of illness (morbidity) especially in contaminated areas, points out the report.

In Belarus, for example, the Health Ministry reports a morbidity rate in the contaminated Gomel region of 51 per cent with significant increases in lung and stomach cancers and problems with the urinary system.

The increase in thyroid cancers in children under 14 has been dramatic. In Belarus between 1966 and 1985 a total of 21 cases was registered compared with 379 since 1986. In Ukraine there were 25 cases between 1981 and 1985 and 208 between 1986 and 1994.

In addition to health problems, all three countries are facing serious economic difficulties as they move from a centralised to market system and all have lost large areas of forest and agricultural land due to contamination.

In Belarus over 30 per cent of the land is estimated to have been affected. Additional problems arise in the summer when forest fires in affected areas can spread contamination to other regions in the smoke.

The UN report is critical of the lack of international support provided so far.

“The desire for hard evidence before action has left the victims of the Chernobyl accident waiting nearly ten years, and much inaction has hidden behind what will always be unquantifiable,” it says.

There has beena noticeable imbalance in the aid offered for scientific research and for practical relief.

In concludes: “A concerted effort needs to be made to alert the international community and, in particular, the donors, to the fact that Chernobyl is still a major humanitarian tragedy and that the magnitude of its effects will continue to grow over the next 10 years.

Haertl believes the need for positive action is urgent. “Some 90 per cent of the consequences of the Chernobyl accident are still uncertain, but despite this we need to act quickly. There is a moral imperative to help the victims of the accident now.”