Day 281 – 52 Books in 52 Weeks

Chernobyl. 1986. I think most people remember where they were when the nuclear reactor blew up and the news came out. This is one of those topics that has fascinated me but I’ve never had time to do a lot of research on it. There’s also the fact that the Soviet government at the time didn’t exactly reveal too much information. And today, there is apparently still a lot unknown about what really happened.

Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster by Svetlana Alexievich is a collection of interviews done in the early 1990’s that were written up in 1996. The English translation didn’t come out until 2005-6 (translator was Keith Gessen). It’s not a Q&A type of interview/book. It was written in first-person form, so you’re seeing things through the eyes of the people themselves.

There’s a short “Translator’s Preface” by Keith Gessen which lays out some interesting facts that I wasn’t aware of.

Only one person died the day of the explosion (April 26, 1986); and in the following few weeks, fewer than 30 workers and firemen died from acute radiation poisoning. However, it is estimated that tens of thousands received “extremely high doses” of radiation.

He states that there were “hunters” that had to go into the “Zone of Exclusion” (a 30 kilometer radius (~18 miles) from the power plant) and kill household pets that were left behind after the evacuation. Others had to “deactivate” the physical landscape: digging up the earth and trees and bury them as they would any nuclear waste.

Gessen says that “it’s certainly true that Chernobyl, while an accident in the sense that no one intentionally set it off, was also the deliberate product of a culture of cronyism, laziness, and a deep-seated indifference toward the general population. The literature on the subject is pretty unanimous in its opinion that the Soviet system had taken a poorly designed reactor and then staffed it with a group of incompetents. It then proceeded… to lie about the disaster…”

But he points out that, as you read the testimonies in this book, it wasn’t as if the Soviet government just stood back and let Chernobyl burn. There was a genuinely frantic effort to deal with it. The week after the explosion, thought the government wasn’t admitting to anything serious happening, they were evacuating tens of thousands of residents and at the same time sending in thousands of men to stop the fire and clear debris.

What is scary is that robots and other machines were sent in to do this but the radiation was so high every machine broke down within minutes of getting into the area. And though they threw untrained men at the reactor, in some cases pulling the men off of the streets and forcing them to go, it’s believed that had they not done this, the catastrophe would have been a lot worse.

Though most of us think that this accident was over back in 1986, the fact is that current studies (as current as 2005 when this book was printed) say the danger hasn’t passed.

Following Gessen’s Preface there is a short Historical Notes section. It starts out by telling the readers that there are no nuclear power stations in Belarus (where most of those interviewed are from). Then it lists these facts:

• Belarus, population 10 million.
• During WWII: Nazis destroyed 619 Belarussian villages and their inhabitants.
• Chernobyl destroyed 485 villages. Of these, 70 are buried underground because of radiation contamination.
• During WWII: 1 of every 4 Belarussians were killed.
• Today (1996): 1 of every 5 Belarussians live on contaminated land (2.1 million people).
• 50 million Ci of radionuclides were released from the explosion – 70% of these descended on Belarus.
• 23% of the Belarus territory is contaminated: the perpetual presence of small doses of radiation causes the number of people with cancer, mental retardation, neurological disorders and genetic mutations increases each year.
• On April 29, 1986 (three days after the explosion): high levels of radiation were detected in Poland, Germany, Austria and Romania.
• April 30: Switzerland and northern Italy.
• May 1-2: France, Belgium, Netherlands, Great Britain and norther Greece.
• May 2: Japan.
• May 5: India, the United States and Canada.

It took less than a week for the radiation to spread around the world.

• Reactor #4 (the one that exploded) still holds 20 tons of nuclear fuel. No one knows what is happening with it.
• The “sarcophagus” poured over it too hold in the radiation is showing signs of cracks and spaces where radioactive particles are escaping. By some figures these cracks add up to 200 square meters.
• If the sarcophagus collapses, the consequences would be more dire than those in 1986.

What follows that information is the first-hand accounts of survivors, widows, widowers, doctors, nurses, teachers… all touched personally by this horrible accident. Some stories are horrifying (watching a husband suffer for 14 days as his body degenerates in ways never before seen by anyone); some show us the proud, heroic Russian spirit by men and women who volunteered to go in and clean up. Other stories make you wonder why anyone would go back to that area and try to start a life again.

There is one story about a little girl born with not a single opening in her body other than her eyes. She had no anus, vagina, mouth… in four years, she’s had four operations. Her mother was told it was a congenital handicap. It took her four years to get confirmation that it was due to ionized radiation.

Another story tells about how in the first days after the accident, all books about radiation disappeared from library shelves. Even books about X-rays and Hiroshima disappeared. People think it was done on a government order to keep people from panic.

On page 170 it says that in Belarus alone, in 1993 (7 years after the explosion), there were 200,000 abortions because of Chernobyl. One story (the village isn’t mentioned) says that since 1986 no children have been born in that village.

All in all, it’s an interesting read, albeit depressing. There are a few gruesome passages, but most of the monologues are just people spilling out emotions that had been bottled up for ten years. It has made me want to read more on the subject of Chernobyl and even Three Mile Island. But I still have several other books on the list first…