Russia considers uprating RBMK reactors. Despite universal calls for the closure of these reactors following the explosion at Chernobyl, Moscow is said to be deliberating lifetime extensions and uprates for its eleven operating RBMK reactors. Units at Leningrad, Kursk and Smolensk are expected to be uprated by 5%. Since Chernobyl, 'significant' design modifications have been made and extensive refurbishment undertaken
WNA Weekly Digest, May 5 2006
8,000 Russians killed. Officials at Russia's Ministry of Health have revealed that 7,000 to 8,000 Russians are known to have died as a result of the Chernobyl accident and some 60,000 have been declared disabled due to the sustained damage to their health. This contradicts UN reports that have suggested that the total number of people expected to die from cancers as a result of the disaster in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus would be around 9,000.
www.ZeeNews.com, April 24 2006
Whitewash. Viktor Bryukhanov, former Chernobyl director jailed for negligence over the explosion, told Russia's Profil magazine that the world has not learnt the lessons of Chernobyl because scientists covered up details about the design faults and official investigations ended in whitewash to protect the nuclear industry. According to Bryukhanov, this was part of an international cover up of the risks of nuclear power. He also accused the U.S., France, Japan and the UK of hiding the real causes of accidents at their own nuclear power plants although he did not provide any evidence to support such claims.
Reuters, April 26 2006
UN death toll rejected. The official figures released by the UN in the controversial Chernobyl Forum report released in October 2005 predicted between four and nine thousand extra Chernobyl-related cancer deaths but a new report released in April estimates the number of deaths to be as high as 93,000. According to Nikolai Omelyanets, deputy head of the National Commission for Radiation Protection in Ukraine, up to 500,000 people have already perished as a result of radiation exposure and 34,499 people who took part in clean up efforts at Chernobyl have also since died - cancer deaths from this group are three times higher than the rest of the population and infant mortality also increased by 20-30%. Omelyanets stated that information on cancer deaths were sent to both the IAEA and the World Health Organization (WHO) twice in 2005 but that neither acknowledged the studies. The Scientific Centre for Radiation Medicine in the Ukraine agreed that thyroid cancers, leukaemia and previously unseen genetic mutations have overwhelmed the country since the Chernobyl accident and questioned the reasons why the WHO continues to ignore the data.
BBC News, April 18 2006; The Guardian, March 25, 2006
4,000 Russian villages contaminated. Russia's chief public health official and member of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, Gennady Onishchenko, said that around 4,343 towns and villages in 14 regions remain within the radioactive contamination zone. Some 1.4 million people live in these villages. Although the 'permissible' level of radiation is exceeded in just four of the fourteen regions, the population is still forced to risk internal contamination from radionuclides because of contaminated foodstuffs.
Itar-Tass, April 4, 2006
Infant deaths in UK linked. The results of a study - Chernobyl: How Many Children Died? - conducted by statistician John Urquhart were presented to participants at the March 2006 Nuclear Free Local Authorities conference held in London. The study showed that infant deaths in areas of the UK hardest hit by radioactive fallout from the explosion increased by 11% between 1986 and 1989 - up to 1,000 baby deaths. Radiation carried in the 'black rain' that fell in certain parts of the UK is said to be responsible - it is thought that the rain increased the risk of deadly respiratory problems and cancers in vulnerable infants. Urquhart tracked health records and official weather reports and studied 50,000 infant deaths in 11 areas from 1983 to 1992. Prior to the explosion, infant mortality had been declining by around 4% a year.
Urquhart's report can be downloaded at www.healthandenvironment.com
The Sun, March 23, 2006
Fallout still affecting British farms. The Department of Health admitted that 200,000 sheep still graze on land contaminated by Chernobyl fallout 20 years ago. Emergency orders still apply to 355 Welsh, eleven Scottish and nine English farms - much of the contaminated land in Wales lies within the Snowdonia National Park. Under restrictions imposed in 1986, no sheep can be moved from any of these areas without a special license. Sheep with higher than permissible levels of radiation are marked with permanent dye and moved to graze on uncontaminated grass for several months before they can be passed fit to enter the food chain. Farmers were initially told that such restrictions would last for around 30 days but two decades later, there is apparently still no end in sight.
The Independent, March 14 2006
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