Inside The Nuclear Exclusion Zone
"One of the first to travel inside the [Chernobyl] exclusion zones and capture the sites on film was photographer Elena Filatova, who maintains a fascinating weblog of her motorcycle visits to the chilling ghost towns.... Shadows of the disaster contributed to disquiet at Australia's recent agreement to provide [uranium] ore to China as they begin construction of 19 nuclear power plants."
Nuclear ghosts shadow victims
Sunday Mail, (Australia), 16 April 2006
"Standing on the roof of the highest building in this empty town [Pripyat] brings a feeling
of being completely alone in the world - like this whole town is."
Up On The Roof
Ghost Town - By Elena Filatova
(Chernobyl Reactor And It Post-Disaster 'Protective' Sarcophagus Encasement On Horizon)"The sarcophagus will remain radioactive for at least 100,000 years. The age for the pyramids of Egypt is 5,000 to 6,000 years. Each cultural epoch left something to humanity, something immortal, like Judaic epoch left us Bible, Greek culture- philosophy, Romans contributed law and we are leaving Sarcophagus, the construction that going to outlive all other signs of our epoch and may last longer then pyramids."
Ghost Town - By Elena Filatova
Our Pyramids
"2006 is the 20th anniversary year of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Powerful pro-nuclear forces are committed to spinning out positive 'news releases' and 'reports' to lessen the negative impact.... The UN report sound like people about to begin to populate those part of the land where according to UN radiation levels had mostly returned to acceptable levels. Let me assure, nothing of this kind is really happens. Each year I travel I see more and more desolated villages and towns. The whole area is dying away. One of the reason why people do not want to settle in areas close to Chernobyl is because the hastily constructed sarcophagus is in danger of collapse."
Elena Filatova, Ukraine - Chernobyl Journal
www.elenafilatova.com"I wonder if any citizen or official have ever considered what would happen if terrorists will get to nuclear facilities. Look at my Chernobyl [web] site and you will see what becomes to the land if only 3%-5% radiation released in atmosphere... With high prices for oil, the nuclear plants will spring up like mushrooms after the rain ... I just wanted everyone to know, where we stand with the truth about Chernie on eve of its 20th anniversary. Chernobyl is not just the piece of our past. What government officials are hiding may be the future of our planet, because some day, we'll have to pay for all lie, hypocrisy and greed of our system."
Elena Filatova, Ukraine - Chernobyl Journal
www.elenafilatova.com"Best everyone can do to keep Chernobyl story active is to pass link of my story to their friends...... it is not only in Ukraine, nukes coming to us on a big way, all around the world. Not long ago Tony Blair announced that Great Britain may build new nuclear power plants..... The problem of victims of Chernobyl is that no one want to see them. Not in here, not in Russia, not in America or Europe. We have different economic and political systems, but greed everywhere is the same.... Well never know what effect the radiation is going to have on humans, not as long as money rule the world. Here, if some scientist will publish true research, they will lose their jobs in no time.... "
Elena Filatovas Interview With Bikernet (USA)
Bikernet, January 2006
"Of all the stories to emerge in
the aftermath of the [Chernobyl nuclear] accident be they whispers of government
cover-ups or horrific mutants Elena Filatovas has probably travelled both furthest and fastest, which seems
appropriate as this self-proclaimed 'Gamma Girl' from Ukraine confesses to a love of
powerful motorcyles. 'Good girls go to heaven,' she writes on her eponymous website. 'Bad
ones go to hell. And girls on fast bikes go anywhere they want.' For Filatova, this
apparently meant two-wheeled trips into the heart of the dead zone, 130km north of her
hometown of Kiev, gunning her black Kawasaki ZZR-1100 along the long-deserted roads there,
weaving in and out of derelict roadblocks and taking pictures of what she saw.... Combining her own contemporary pictures and short videos with older
photographs and archive footage, Filatova created a powerful,
personal story, annotated with comments in her own distinctive authorial voice, a mix of
unsentimental description, righteous indignation and unexpected flashes of poetry.... She has created a permanent, pulsing reminder of the dangers inherent in
atomic power at a time when governments around the world are warming to the idea of
constructing new nuclear reactors. This month, a book of
Filatovas dead zone photographs and accompanying text is being published in
Sweden, one of the countries worst affected by the cloud
of radiation that crept across Europe 20 years ago. All profits are going to the Swedish
Red Cross."
Chernobyl: one woman's journey into the dead zone
Sunday Herald, 9 April 2006
| In This Bulletin |
| Chernobyl Nuclear Fallout Where Are We Now? |
| Photographic Account Of What Is
Left Behind Today Elena Filatova's Ventures Into The Chernobyl Exclusion Zones |
| Filatova's Interview To Dagens Nyheter Sweden's Biggest Daily Newspaper Paper |
| A Contaminated Europe |
| Chernobyl Cover-up |
| What Use Are More Nuclear Reactors? |
| A Non-Nuclear Future? Sweden To Switch To Oil Free Economy Without Nuclear |
| A Non-Nuclear Future? UK Parliament Launch of ISIS 2006 Energy Report |

Paul Fusco: A Children's Home in Minsk, 2000
Der
Spiegel Online - The Aftermath of the Chernobyl Disaster
Chernobyl Nuclear Fallout
Where Are We Now?
" Nuclear
scientists had always assured the country's leadership that our nuclear reactors were
completely safe.... The social, ecological and
economic consequences of these kind of disasters are much too heavy in every sense of the
word. We can therefore see what enormous responsibility is placed not only on politicians,
but on scientists, engineers and designers - their mistakes could cost the life and health
of millions of people."
Michael Gorbachev
BBC Online, 22 April 2006
"Milk and meat produced by private
farms in areas affected by the Chernobyl disaster create a major health risk to local
residents, Russia's chief doctor said Monday. 'Radionuclides in food products are the main
contributors to doses of internal radiation,' Gennady Onishchenko told a press conference
ahead of the 20th anniversary of the world's worst civilian nuclear disaster."
Chernobyl-area food major source of radiation - chief doctor
Novosti
(Russia), 23 April 2006
"One of the most
experienced researchers into the Chernobyl disaster has broken his silence to warn
European leaders that flirting with nuclear power 'is
folly of the first order'. The views of Yuri
Bandazhevsky have cost him his reputation as one of the former Soviet Union's most
respected scientists and earned him a five-year stint as a prisoner of conscience in
Belarus, where contradicting the government line is always a risk.... After years of
studying corpses in the mortuaries of Gomel and collecting what available statistics there
were on still-births in the affected zones, he concluded that exposure to the radioactive
element caesium-137 was causing far more deaths than was generally realised. Six months
after being freed, Mr Bandazhevsky is speaking out again now that he sees that nuclear
power is once again becoming acceptable in western Europe. 'Not just because of Chernobyl
but also because of nuclear testing around the world, the stratosphere holds huge amounts
of caesium,' he said. 'To start re-engaging in
full-scale nuclear power as Europe seems determined to do is folly of the first order.' An investigation by 100 scientists acting under the auspices of nine
United Nations bodies and published last year said that fewer than 50 people died as an
immediate result of the accident. It said that the eventual number of deaths attributable
to longer-term radiation was unlikely to exceed 9,000. But Greenpeace issued a report by
52 scientists that put the number of terminal cancer cases at 93,000 and said that a
further 200,000 might already have died of radiation related illnesses in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus alone. Mr Bandazhevsky, too, rejected the UN study. 'The authors want to draw a
line under Chernobyl,' he said. 'The report humiliates the people who suffered from this
catastrophe.' Mr Bandazhevsky said that vital information had
been suppressed first by the Soviet authorities then by the Belarussian government.... Mr Bandazhevsky used to be a member of five academies of science. Now
he is shunned by colleagues who are now too frightened to be seen consorting with
him..."
Chernobyl scientist warns of 'nuclear folly'
Daily
Telegraph, 24 April 2006
"United Nations nuclear
and health watchdogs have ignored evidence of deaths, cancers, mutations and other
conditions after the Chernobyl accident, leading scientists and doctors have claimed in
the run-up to the nuclear disaster's 20th anniversary next month. In a series of reports
about to be published, they will suggest that at least 30,000 people are expected to die
of cancers linked directly to severe radiation exposure in 1986 and up to 500,000 people
may have already died as a result of the world's worst environmental catastrophe.... In
the Rivne region of Ukraine, 310 miles west of Chernobyl, doctors say they are coming
across an unusual rate of cancers and mutations. 'In the 30 hospitals of our region we
find that up to 30% of people who were in highly radiated areas have physical disorders,
including heart and blood diseases, cancers and respiratory diseases. Nearly one in three
of all the newborn babies have deformities, mostly internal,' said Alexander Vewremchuk,
of the Special Hospital for the Radiological Protection of the Population in Vilne.
Figures on the health effects of Chernobyl have always been disputed. Soviet authorities covered up many
of the details at the time. The largest radiation doses were received by the 600,000
people involved in the clean-up, many drawn from army conscripts all over the Soviet
Union."
UN accused of ignoring 500,000 Chernobyl deaths
Guardian, 25 March
2006
Soviet document classifying
as secret all information about Chernobyl accident, including health conditions
Click
Here To Download (971k)
"Up to 8,000 Russians
[alone, ignoring Ukrainians and Belarussians] have died from the Chernobyl nuclear
disaster 20 years ago, health officials said today, amid an ongoing dispute over the
number of deaths and long-term health effects caused by the accident. Vladimir Demidov, a Health Ministry official charged with
Chernobyl matters, said between 7,000 and 8,000
Russians died as a result of the accident, and some 60,000 have been declared disabled
because of the sustained damage to their health."
Up to 8,000 Russians died from Chernobyl accident: Official
ZeeNews
(India), 25 April 2006
The [British] public is sceptical about the
case for building new nuclear power stations, despite concerns that Britain may have to
rely on imported gas for future energy needs. Hostility to nuclear power is matched by a
belief that renewable sources of energy such as wind farms could fill the gap in energy
needs in the next 20 years, the Populus survey finds. It also indicates that politicians are not trusted to tell the truth about nuclear safety. The poll found that 59 per cent of those questioned believe that it
would be irresponsible to build more nuclear power stations while problems remain in
disposing of nuclear waste
Half of respondents go so far as to say that they
believe nuclear power to be unsafe.

'Liquidators'
were recruited or forced to assist in the cleanup
or the
liquidation of the consequences of the Chernobyl accident
Where
To Read About Elena Filatova's Ventures 'Ghost Town' And 'Land of The Wolves' Afterword Memory Wikipedia About Elena Filatova http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elena_Filatova http://www.bikernet.com/news/PageViewer.asp?PageID=675 Some Text Excerpts "... the device
we use for measuring radiation levels is called a geiger counter . If you flick it on in
Kiev, it will measure about 12-16 microroentgen per hour. In a typical city of Russia and
America, it will read 10-12 microroentgen per hour. In the center of many European cities
are 20 microR per hour, the radioactivity of the stone. 1,000 microroentgens equal one
milliroentgen and 1,000 milliroentgens equal 1 roentgen. So one roentgen is 100,000 times
the average radiation of a typical city. A dose of 500 roentgens within 5 hours is fatal
to humans. Interestingly, it takes about 2 1/2 times that dosage to kill a chicken and
over 100 times that to kill a cockroach. This sort of radiation level can not be found in
Chernobyl now. In the first days after explosion, some places around the reactor were
emitting 3,000-30,000 roentgens per hour. The firemen who were sent to put out the reactor
fire were fried on the spot by gamma radiation. The remains of the reactor were entombed
within an enormous steel and concrete sarcophagus, so it is now relatively safe to travel
to the area - as long as one do not step off of the roadway and do not stick in a wrong
places....... " "Radiation went in soil and now in
apples and mushrooms. It is not retained by asphalt, which makes rides through this area
possible.... Radiation will stay in the Chernobyl area for tens thousand years, but humans
may begin repopulating the area in about 600 years - give or take three centuries." "... At least wild boars are
comfortable here now. No one hunt for them, they are radiactive... On
outskirts of Vilcha, my new generation hand-held Geiger counter 'inspector' reads 109
mR/hr. Town is located some 45 kms from reactor, in direction of where the first
radiactive clouds drifted.... Standing on this bridge is as safe as standing on bridges in
Venice. But never forget this is Chernie, where you can walk a few hundred meters away and
get in some very bad place. There are more then 800 burials of radiactive waste materials
in Chernobyl area. They left since 1986 and we never know where they are. For
safety, Geiger counter must always be turned on.... Some of villages are
heavily poisoned. The radiation here is even higher than it is near the reactor site. If
we take a Geiger counter reading on the road, then one on the grass and compare the two
readings, the grass is 8.5 times more than the asphalt, because radiation becomes
concentrated in living organisms. The source of this radiation is Americium. Initially,
things were not too bad here. This area was poisoned with Plutonium-241 and a strange
quirk of this element is that it is not very radioactive at first... then decays into components that include
Americium-241 which produces powerful gamma rays, real cannon balls compared to the
'bird-shot' particle radiation of the original Plutonium." GO TO The first official announcement of the
Chernobyl accident was made on Soviet national television evening news on 28 April 1986
and lasted 14 seconds. Document classifying as secret all
information about Chernobyl accident, including health conditions |
"
Best everyone can do to keep Chernobyl story active is to pass link of my story to their friends. People should no just forget Chernobyl happened, like many in government want.... I am a Gamma Girl and Id still ride [my motorcycle] through empty towns and villages of post apocalyptic land North of Kiev.... With high prices for natural gas and oil, our government has no other choice as to build new reactors, but it is not only in Ukraine, nukes coming to us on a big way, all around the world. Not long ago Tony Blair announced that Great Britain may build new nuclear power plants. In America nuclear program is still frozen after Three Mile accident, but 'The Powers That Be' already seeking approvals at politicians. The problem of victims of Chernobyl is that no one want to see them. Not in here, not in Russia, not in America or Europe. We have different economic and political systems, but greed everywhere is the same.... Well never know what effect the radiation is going to have on humans, not as long as money rule the world. Here, if some scientist will publish true research, they will lose their jobs in no time.... I had some problems [when I launched my web site] but I was not in real trouble. Of course, my website bother them, but it didnt intersect with interests of some particular clan or some financial group.... 'Ghost Town' was on the news in 2004 and I had 3 million unique visitors on my site in April 2004, 2.5 millions in May 2004. Mirrored sites also reported of big traffic. Then papers all around the world start to write that my site is not true and it brought me even more visitors. Now, water has cooled around Chernobyl story, but people still have interest to my web sites. To me it is important to know that my work has permanent value and is not of one day fleeting popularity.... I will continue telling about 'North Wing', the deserted area that is located in neighbouring countries of Belorussia and Russia. Ive lived in Belorussia and I know the geography and history of a site. Ive planned something special for 'North Wing', but I doubt I will work on this story in this year. "
Radiation Hotspots In Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia
Resulting From The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Accident
(Click On Map To Access Page With Enlarged Version)
"Almost 20 years have passed
since the accident and they even didn't start building us a decent sarcophagus.... They
have enough means to build new reactors, to bribe news media and politicians all around
the world, they rich enough for [artificially] keeping a death toll [statistics] so low
for so many years, but they have no means, neither political will to protect people of
Europe from nuclear meltdown.... ."
Elena Filatova, 15 September 2005
www.elenafilatova.com
"Plans to build an engineering wonder
of the world a gigantic £300m hangar to prevent a second disaster at Chernobyl
have been stalled by a series of rows between western donors and the Ukrainian
government.... The massive structure, officially called the New Safe Confinement, is
designed to cover the hastily constructed 'sarcophagus' that encases the highly
radioactive remains of Number Four reactor. The sarcophagus was built within months of the
disaster, with helicopters lifting slabs of concrete into place to cover the devastated
reactor building. An estimated 200 tons of radioactive matter lies within the temporary
structure but the sarcophagus and everything within it are contaminated. The European
Union and other international donors have spent tens of millions of pounds on stabilising
the structure, which many had feared would collapse, releasing its deadly contents in
another calamity.... Although most Ukrainians wanted to close down their nuclear industry
for years after the accident, four other power stations including Europes
largest at Zaporizhya have continued to operate. Ukraine is dependent for much of
its energy, especially gas, on Russia, which quadrupled prices earlier this year as
punishment for Ukraine straying away from Moscows orbit and cultivating closer ties
with the EU and Nato. Developing the countrys nuclear industry has become a
priority: Ukraine wants to build up to 13 more reactors for its own needs and to export
electricity to western Europe."
Stalled: the Chernobyl rescue Ark
Sunday Times, 23
April 2006
Filatova's
Interview To Dagens Nyheter
Sweden's Biggest Daily Newspaper
| http://www.angelfire.com/extreme4/kiddofspeed/journal/articles.html April, 16, 2006 Why do you devote so much of your life to this catastrophe? Some day those towns and villages will be demolished and I don't want their memory to disappear. I want to leave a record in images, videos and short stories of how I saw Chernobyl. I am sure, in the future people will appreciate my efforts. How would you describe the life in this area, when you were a child? I have lived all my life in Kiev, which is 130 kms South of Chernobyl. I was not present in the Chernobyl area before the catastrophe. My first visit was to the Belorussian part of Chernobyl in 1992. Later I traveled through the Russian part and was impressed with the immensity of the total territory that had been poisoned by radiation. How is this issue, the Tjernobyl catastrophe, discussed in your country today? Unfortunately, the human cost of the Chernobyl catastrophe is not often mentioned anymore. Removing it from memory has been a policy of our government for all these years. It is impossible to buy a book about the history of Chernobyl. Now we only see the movies and documentaries about Chernobyl on April 26. Yet even these show only the cold science of nuclear reactions and flawed engineering. The 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine didn't bring us any progress. Authorities only raised the official death toll from 31 to 56 people. Ukraine does not want to depend on Russian oil and gas and now will build more reactors. Our president is proud when he says that Ukraine already exports electricity to Moldova and Belorus. How, do you think, will Tjernobyl affect coming generations? Physically and mentally? This spring I visited different parts of Chernobyl area. I saw new dead villages located 60-90 kms west from reactor. Deserted places can be seen as far as 250 kms on North from reactor. People are leaving. It appears that places that have been affected with radiation have no chance to survive. Sooner or later people will leave them all. This is the saddest thing, towns like Poleskoye with a thousand years of rich history now standing in ruins. This is only what we can see, we can not see what affect Chernobyl is having on human health. All such statistics are very controversial. I am sure Chernobyl affects both physically and mentally those who still live in the contaminated areas. It doesn't affect people who live in other parts of Ukraine. The decision to build new reactors was taken without any public debates or protests. The residents of the towns where they will build new reactors are more concerned about ring-melodies for mobil phones - apparently being eager to sell out their collective genetic future for a few jobs and fast money. Fools gold, I think. I am not an anti-nuclear activist, I am just someone who thinks that we should learn from past mistakes and therefore not build any more reactors close to population centers. Can you tell me, in detail, what you were doing that very day, the 26th of April 1986? On April 26th we didn't know anything about the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear plant. I was very young and I was playing in the streets with other children. The next day, a Sunday, my parents wanted to visit our country house, but there were no busses to be had. 1200 busses had been sent to evacuate people from Pripyat and several hundred more to evacuate people from other villages close to reactor. That evening first official announcement was made on TV, it lasted only 14 seconds. My dad is a nuclear physicist, so the next day he brought a radiation detecting device home from work. It was big as a suitcase. The next two days radiation readings remained normal. At this time Sweden was already affected, but in Kiev all was still normal. The North wind saved us. Then on May 1st the wind changed direction, and that morning the reading at our home showed 1 milliroentgen per hour, which is 100 times greater than normal... I will never forget my father's face - he just grabbed me and my sister and put us on the train and sent us all off to my Grandmothers, safely away from the radiation. |
"The World Health Organization (WHO)
should study how the Chernobyl nuclear disaster affected nations other than Belarus,
Ukraine and Russia, a report said on Wednesday, citing a lack of data especially for
western Europe. 'Although areas of Belarus, Ukraine and Russia were heavily contaminated,
most of Chernobyl's fallout was deposited outside these countries,' said the report, which
was carried out by independent researchers and commissioned by Rebecca Harms, a German
member of the Greens party in the European Parliament. 'Fallout from Chernobyl
contaminated about 40 percent of Europe's surface area,' the report said, adding that
populations outside the three countries faced 'twice as many predicted excess cancer
deaths'. The study predicted roughly 30,000 to 60,000 cancer deaths by the end of this
century related to Chernobyl, which it said was significantly higher than estimates by the
WHO and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)."
WHO must study Chernobyl's effect on Europe: report
Reuters,
19 April 2006
"Twenty years after the [Chernobyl]
disaster, epidemiologist John Urquhart told the Nuclear Free Local Authorities conference
in London on Thursday that he had found an 'almost perfect correlation' between areas
where rain from radioactive clouds fell [in the UK], and an 11% increase in infant deaths.
Nationwide averages have so far masked the regional increases in infant death rates. But
when seen in conjunction with a detailed nuclear fallout map based on meteorological data,
a different picture emerges, he said. The researcher obtained infant death figures
from 1983 to 1992 for 200 hospital districts across England and Wales. He found regional
increases in infant deaths following the accident, which happened on 26 April 1986, in
areas where plumes of rain brought nuclear fallout onto the ground."
Chernobyl linked to British children's deaths
Edie, 23 March 2006
"More
than a third of Britain is still contaminated by radioactivity from the Chernobyl disaster
two decades ago, and children are getting cancer as
a result, an Independent on Sunday investigation has established. Official
measurements - published in a report launched in London yesterday - show that at least 34
per cent of the country will remain radioactive for
centuries as the result of the accident, which took
place 20 years ago on Wednesday. And scientists have found rates of thyroid cancer in
children in Cumbria, the worst-affected part of England, rose 12-fold after the
catastrophe - and blame fallout from the radioactive cloud that spread from the stricken
reactor. This confounds government assurances at the time that the radiation in Britain
was 'nowhere near the levels at which there is any hazard to health.'... The report says
the radioactive caesium - and the doses of radiation it gives Britons - will only 'decline
slowly over the next few hundred years'."
Chernobyl 'still causing cancer in British children'
Independent, 23
April 2006
"The disaster released at least 100
times more radiation than the atom bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Much of the
fallout was deposited close to Chernobyl, in parts of Belarus, Ukraine and Russia. More
than 350,000 people resettled away from these areas, but about 5.5 million remain.
Contamination with caesium and strontium is of particular concern, as it will be present
in the soil for many years. After the accident traces of radioactive deposits were found
in nearly every country in the northern hemisphere. But wind direction and uneven rainfall
left some areas more contaminated than their immediate neighbours. Scandinavia was badly
affected and there are still areas of the UK where
farms face post-Chernobyl controls."
The Chernobyl Distater 20 Years On
BBC
Online, April 2006
"Before Emlyn Roberts, a
North Wales sheep farmer, can take any of his lambs to market, he has to call in the
government inspectors with their Geiger counters. They scan the animals for signs of
radiation because the land they graze is still contaminated from the Chernobyl nuclear
disaster which occurred 20 years ago this month. If the radiation levels are too high, the
lambs cannot be sold for meat until they have spent time on other land. Mr Roberts is one
of 375 British farmers, with more than 200,000 sheep, whose land is still considered
'dirty' and subject to restrictions brought in after radioactive rains brought
contamination to Britain in 1986. When the
restrictions were established, farmers were told they would apply for only a few weeks,
months at most. Twenty years later, many farmers have had to accept that their land could
be affected for years to come."
20 years on, Britain still feels the effects of Chernobyl
Daily
Telegraph, 1 April 2006
"The after-effects of
the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl in the former Soviet Union are still evident in parts of
Central Norway, 20 years after the nuclear reactor exploded on April 26th 1986. Due to the
wind and weather conditions at the time, parts of Central Norway received a considerable
amount of radioactive fallout. Both sheep farms and reindeer herds were affected, and
animals feeding on grass are still given special food additives in order to bring
the level of cesium down to normal. Up to now, the Norwegian authorities have spent
more than NOK 400 million in various efforts to remedy the after-effects of the
explosion at the nuclear power plant."
Chernobyl-effect lingers
Norway Post, 25
April 2006
The [British] public is sceptical about the case for building new
nuclear power stations, despite concerns that Britain may have to rely on imported gas for
future energy needs. Hostility to nuclear power is matched by a belief that renewable
sources of energy such as wind farms could fill the gap in energy needs in the next 20
years, the Populus survey finds. It also indicates that politicians are not trusted to
tell the truth about nuclear safety. The poll found that 59 per cent of those questioned
believe that it would be irresponsible to build more nuclear power stations while problems
remain in disposing of nuclear waste
Half of respondents go so far as to say that
they believe nuclear power to be unsafe.
Voters
prefer wind farms to new nuclear reactors
London Times,
8 August 2005

Paul Fusco: A Children's Home in Minsk, 2000
Der
Spiegel Online - The Aftermath of the Chernobyl Disaster
"[MEP] Rebecca Harms, who is taking
part in Chernobyl+20 NGO conference in Kiyv, the Ukraine, has slammed down on the [UN]
International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, recent statements which considerably diminish
the effects of the Chernobyl consequences..... 'They are not independent, they are working
in favour or close to nuclear industry, their job is from the very beginning to spread
nuclear power all around the world. So they are in favour [of nuclear power], and that has
strange results, they made a falsification of the WHO
[World Health Organisation] studies concerning the Chernobyl consequences.'
Member of the European Parliament wants IAEA off Chernobyl subject
Bellona
(Norway), 24 April 2006
"The IAEA's nuclear experts say that
Chernobyl has claimed 56 lives to date - 47 workers at the disaster site and nine children
who have since died of thyroid cancer. In contrast, the Ukrainian National Council on
Radiation Protection claims to have documented 34,499 deaths among rescue workers. The
United Nations' World Health Organization (WHO) estimated the number of Chernobyl workers
who died from radiation exposure or committed suicide at 50,000 - six years ago.... In a
resolution dated May 8, 1986, the [Soviet] politburo ordered allowable radiation doses
increased by factors ranging from 10 to 50. In a document titled 'Secret Attachment to
Item 10' of the minutes, party officials ordered radioactively contaminated meat turned
into sausage, using a 1:10 ratio, throughout the territory of most republics within the
USSR, including Russia, but 'excluding Moscow.' Under official order number U-2617 C,
issued on June 27, 1986, all data relating to Chernobyl, to the treatment of the victims
and to the nature and scope of their radiation exposure was classified. Though signed by
Yevgeny Shulshenko, a minor official in the USSR's Ministry of Health, the document was
sanctioned by senior party officials and smoothed the way for the subsequent suppression,
falsification and destruction of evidence. It wasn't until 1989 that Pravda
published a map of the contaminated regions, which showed that 70 percent of the fallout
from Chernobyl descended upon Belarus, with the remainder falling onto the Ukraine and
southern Russia. This meant that 5 million people living in thousands of villages and a
few larger cities in the Soviet Union spent three years living in areas exposed to high
levels of radiation while oblivious to the risks involved. Many continued to eat
home-grown vegetables and the berries and mushrooms they normally gathered in the forests.....
according to the foundation 'Children for Chernobyl,' in the past decade
doctors have seen a dramatic increase in deformities among young patients from parts of
Belarus and the Ukraine that were exposed to high levels of radiation -- including
deformed limbs, missing ears, harelips and feet with up to eight toes.... According to one
of the results of [a] study, there has been an almost 20-fold increase in the number of
infants born with 'spina bifida' (cleft vertebra). These children with genetic defects are
the second generation of Chernobyl victims. And they have fuelled a revival of the debate
between scientists and doctors in rival camps - between the IAEA and its opponents.
The first round of the debate centered on thyroid cancer. Beginning in 1990, Fred
Mettler, a radiologist at the University of New Mexico and a man with years of experience
on the pro-nuclear side of radiation damage assessment, began researching the consequences
of the Chernobyl reactor accident for the IAEA. In a
study he published in 1991, Mettler claimed that there were none, not even children with
radiation-induced thyroid cancer. The next year, the British scientific journal Nature
published studies showing a dramatic rise in the incidence of thyroid cancer in
contaminated regions not far from Chernobyl, and it was revealed that Mettler also had
access to the same data from Belarus and the Ukraine.
It was clearly an embarrassing revelation for Mettler and the IAEA, but not embarrassing
enough to put an end to their relationship. In its most recent report dated September
2005, submitted to the United Nations as part of the 'Chernobyl Forum,' the IAEA has this
to say about the issue of genetic defects: 'No evidence was found whatsoever for genetic
anomalies that could be attributed to radiation exposure.' One of the authors of the
report was none other than Fred Mettler."
The Pompeii of the Nuclear Age
Der
Spiegel, 17 April 2006
Der Spiegel Photo Gallery: The Aftermath of the Disaster - Children In Belarus
"United Nations nuclear and health
watchdogs have ignored evidence of deaths, cancers, mutations and other conditions after
the Chernobyl accident, leading scientists and doctors have claimed in the run-up to the
nuclear disaster's 20th anniversary next month. In a series of reports about to be
published, they will suggest that at least 30,000 people are expected to die of cancers
linked directly to severe radiation exposure in 1986 and up to 500,000 people may have
already died as a result of the world's worst environmental catastrophe.... The new
estimates have been collated by researchers commissioned by European parliamentary groups,
Greenpeace International and medical foundations in Britain, Germany, Ukraine, Scandinavia
and elsewhere. They take into account more than 50 published scientific studies. 'At least
500,000 people - perhaps more - have already died out of the 2 million people who were
officially classed as victims of Chernobyl in Ukraine,' said Nikolai Omelyanets, deputy
head of the National Commission for Radiation Protection in Ukraine. '[Studies show] that
34,499 people who took part in the clean-up of Chernobyl have died in the years since the
catastrophe. The deaths of these people from cancers was nearly three times as high as in
the rest of the population.' '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 and WHO. We sent it to them in March last year and again in June.
They've not said why they haven't accepted it. Evgenia Stepanova, of the Ukrainian
government's Scientific Centre for Radiation Medicine, said: 'We're overwhelmed by thyroid
cancers, leukaemias and genetic mutations that are not recorded in the WHO data and which
were practically unknown 20 years ago.'... In the Rivne region of Ukraine, 310 miles west
of Chernobyl, doctors say they are coming across an unusual rate of cancers and mutations.
'In the 30 hospitals of our region we find that up to 30% of people who were in highly
radiated areas have physical disorders, including heart and blood diseases, cancers and
respiratory diseases. Nearly one in three of all the newborn babies have deformities,
mostly internal,' said Alexander Vewremchuk, of the Special Hospital for the Radiological
Protection of the Population in Vilne. Figures on the health effects of Chernobyl have
always been disputed. Soviet authorities covered up many of the details at the time. The largest radiation doses were
received by the 600,000 people involved in the clean-up, many drawn from army conscripts
all over the Soviet Union."
UN accused of ignoring 500,000 Chernobyl deaths
Guardian, 25 March
2006
Soviet document classifying as secret all
information about Chernobyl accident, including health conditions
Click
Here To Download (971k)
"Up to 8,000 Russians have died from
the Chernobyl nuclear disaster 20 years ago, health officials said today, amid an ongoing
dispute over the number of deaths and long-term health effects caused by the accident.
Vladimir Demidov, a Health Ministry official charged with Chernobyl matters, said between
7,000 and 8,000 Russians died as a result of the accident, and some 60,000 have been
declared disabled because of the sustained damage to their health."
Up to 8,000 Russians died from Chernobyl accident: Official
ZeeNews
(India), 25 April 2006
"One of the most
experienced researchers into the Chernobyl disaster has broken his silence to warn
European leaders that flirting with nuclear power 'is folly of the first order'. The views
of Yuri Bandazhevsky have cost him his reputation as one of the former Soviet Union's most
respected scientists and earned him a five-year stint as a prisoner of conscience in
Belarus, where contradicting the government line is always a risk.... After years of
studying corpses in the mortuaries of Gomel and collecting what available statistics there
were on still-births in the affected zones, he concluded that exposure to the radioactive
element caesium-137 was causing far more deaths than was generally realised. Six months after being freed, Mr Bandazhevsky is speaking out again now
that he sees that nuclear power is once again becoming acceptable in western Europe. 'Not just because of Chernobyl but also because of nuclear testing
around the world, the stratosphere holds huge amounts of caesium,' he said. 'To start re-engaging in full-scale nuclear power as Europe seems
determined to do is folly of the first order.' An
investigation by 100 scientists acting under the auspices of nine United Nations bodies
and published last year said that fewer than 50 people died as an immediate result of the
accident. It said that the eventual number of deaths attributable to longer-term radiation
was unlikely to exceed 9,000. But Greenpeace issued a report by 52 scientists that put the
number of terminal cancer cases at 93,000 and said that a further 200,000 might already
have died of radiation related illnesses in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus alone. Mr
Bandazhevsky, too, rejected the UN study. 'The authors want to draw a line under
Chernobyl,' he said. 'The report humiliates the people who suffered from this
catastrophe.' Mr Bandazhevsky said that vital information had been suppressed first by the
Soviet authorities then by the Belarussian government.... Mr Bandazhevsky used to be a
member of five academies of science. Now he is shunned by colleagues who are now too
frightened to be seen consorting with him..."
Chernobyl scientist warns of 'nuclear folly'
Daily
Telegraph, 24 April 2006
"Ukrainians maintain
that tens of thousands of people have died of radiation-related illnesses. After the
disaster the city of Pripyat, which housed Chernobyls workers and their families,
was emptied of inhabitants. Today it has a chilling, post-apocalyptic look to it."
Stalled: the Chernobyl rescue Ark
Sunday Times, 23
April 2006
"The long-term effects of the
Chernobyl disaster have been severely underestimated with a new study estimating that the
nuclear explosion could eventually cause up to 66,000 deaths from cancer - 15 times more
than the formal figures released last September. Nearly 20 years after the world's worst
industrial accident, the report suggests the impact of the 1986 nuclear disaster on the UK
and the rest of the world may never be fully realised. The Other Report on Chernobyl,
otherwise known as Torch, comes ahead of this Wednesday's anniversary. It was co-written
by Dr Ian Fairlie and Dr David Sumner."
Chernobyl deaths 'up to 66,000'
Scotsman On Sunday, 23
April 2006
"'The real harvest of Chernobyl is
just beginning. Breast, lung and stomach cancers are just beginning to appear, and they
are going to increase,' Fairlie told journalists in the European Parliament, adding that
the latency period for cancers is 20-50 years."
EU Greens accuse IAEA of underestimating Chernobyl effect, demand new evaluation
Kiev Post, 19 April 2006
"Greenpeace activists
tried to deliver samples of radioactive soil taken from Chernobyl to the headquarters of
the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna yesterday, on the eve of the 20th
anniversary of the nuclear disaster. ....The action was meant to 'highlight the
IAEAs continued downplaying of the consequences of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster,' the
worst civilian nuclear accident in history, and the continued risk of contamination in the
area, Greenpeace, a non-governmental organisation (NGO), said in a statement. About 30
activists brought the two one-kilogram samples, carried for safety reasons in a
250-kilogram concrete container, to the United Nations in Vienna, headquarters to the
IAEA, but were turned away. 'The IAEA refused to accept the samples,' Greenpeace
campaigner Jan Vande Putte told AFP..."
IAEA downplaying Chernobyl
The
Peninsula (Qatar), 25 April 2006
"The April 26, 1986 Chernobyl
disaster, the most catastrophic nuclear accident in history, was not so bad after all--or
so claims a recent report produced by an international team of scientists convened by the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).... Richard Garwin, an internationally renowned
physicist and IBM fellow emeritus at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center, calls the
report 'deliberately misleading,' arguing that it overlooks evidence that contradicts some
of its conclusions. (The report prompted Garwin to respond with a pointed rebuttal,
published by UPI on November 9, 2005 and available at the Garwin Archive on the web site of
the Federation of American Scientists.) Garwin's criticism centers on what he sees as a
glaring omission--the report's failure to cite the findings of a 1993 study produced by
the U.N. Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR), which
estimated that the worldwide 'collective effective dose' from the Chernobyl accident was
about 600,000 man-sieverts. He also refers to a report published last summer by the
National Academy of Sciences on the effects of ionizing radiation, which concludes that
each dose of whole-body radiation causes a lethal cancer at the rate of 0.04 cancer deaths
per sievert of exposure. Taken together, these findings point to a much higher death rate
than that publicized by the Forum. 'Although it is impossible to identify these 24,000
among the many tens of millions of people who would die from similar cancers from natural
causes over the same period,' Garwin noted in his UPI op-ed, 'those deaths are
nevertheless a consequence of the radiation release.' Garwin, a nuclear power advocate,
calls this omission a 'terrible scandal,' arguing that it lets the industry off the
hook.... David Marples, a historian at the University of Alberta who has written several
books about the Chernobyl disaster and has done extensive field research in the affected
regions, also contests some of the Chernobyl Forum's figures. He finds the report
consistent with earlier studies produced by the IAEA, which he says have attempted to
minimize the health consequences of radiation exposure while highlighting other factors,
like psychology, economics, and living standards. One new feature, says Marples, is the
long overdue acknowledgement that the accident caused an outbreak in thyroid cancers among
people who were children at the time. According to the report's summary, there have been
4,000 such cases, which are often caused by drinking milk contaminated with radioactive
iodine... Len Ackland, the Bulletin's editor at the time of the accident and
currently a journalism professor at the University of Colorado, also sees a larger--albeit
bleaker--message in the report. Twenty years later, he observes, the prevailing problems
at the time of the accident are still with us: 'There is the intimate connection between
nuclear energy and nuclear weapons proliferation, and we have yet to overcome the problem
of the susceptibility of complex systems to human error. Chernobyl remains the symbol of
these dark sides of nuclear power."
Chernobyl: Hardly the last word
Bulletin of the Atomic
Scientists, March/April 2006 pp. 14-16 (vol. 62, no. 02)
www.elenafilatova.com
Document classifying as secret all
information about Chernobyl accident, including health conditions |
What Use Are More Nuclear Reactors?
As 'Peak Oil' Debate Heats Up Energy Update, April 2006 |
A
Non-Nuclear Future?
Sweden To Switch To Oil Free Economy Without Nuclear
"Sweden recently announced plans to
become the world's first oil-free economy within 15 years, without
building a new generation of nuclear power stations...
"
India, China and the yellowcake supply problem
The
Age (Australia), 31 March 2006
Renewable Energy - The Swedes Are
Serious About It
Sweden Plans To Go Oil-Free By 2020 With No New
Nuclear Power Stations - Click Here
A Non-Nuclear
Future?
UK Parliament Launch of ISIS 2006 Energy Report
The Institute of Science in SocietyScience Society Sustainability http://www.i-sis.org.uk |
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ISIS Press Release 20/04/06Which Energy?Parliament Launch of ISIS 2006 Energy ReportFirst AnnouncementEnergy options for a post fossil-fuel world
Chair by:Tim Yeo, MP for Suffolk South, Chair of Commons Environmental Audit Committee SpeakersPeter Ainsworth, MP for East Surrey, Shadow Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Secretary Prof. George Chan, scientific advisor to the government of Mauritius, recipient of several international awards for energy innovation Dr. Mae-Wan Ho, scientific adviser to Third World Network, Director of ISIS and first author of ISIS Energy Report Rt Hon Michael Meacher, MP for Oldham West and Royton, ex Minister for the Environment responsible for negotiating the Kyoto Protocol and other key international agreements for energy and sustainability Alan Simpson, MP for Nottingham, Chair of All Party Warm Houses Group, recently nominated for ITN EcoHero Award Time & Date: 10:00h 12:30h, Thursday 25 May 2006 Venue: Committee Room 6, House of Commons, Westminster, London SW1A 0AA Admission is free, but places are limited and will be assigned on a first come first serve basis. Please reserve your place immediately by sending us your name and details E-mail: energyconference@i-sis.org.uk Telephone: 0208-452-2729/0207-272-5636 Mail: Energy Conference, ISIS, PO Box 51885, London NW2 9DH |
No Solution In Sight? |
'PEAK
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