Even after 20 years it is still not possible to give an exact account of the effects that Chernobyl caused throughout the world. Much of the available information is subject to heated discussions representing various views on the accident.
The list below is compiled based on data from Children of Chernobyl International, Children of Chornobyl Relief and Development Fund and www.chernobyl.info.
HEALTH
- Shortly after the explosion, thousands of children and adults in Ukraine and Belarus were stricken with acute radiation sickness. Symptoms included vomiting, hair loss, severe rashes; this contradicts the original official public estimates of 100 people affected.
- In 1994 experts from the University of Hiroshima analysed data on newborns and 30,000 stillborn foetuses in Belarus; researchers concluded that birth defects have nearly doubled since 1986.
- More than 10,000 Ukrainian children have travelled to Cuba for treatment of leukaemia and other illnesses.
- Overall, oncological illnesses (cancers) among children in Ukraine have tripled since 1986.
- In 2001, a joint Israeli-Ukrainian study published in the Royal Society of Medicine in London found that the children of Chornobyl liquidators born after the 1986 disaster have a rate of chromosome damage seven times higher than their siblings born prior to the nuclear accident.
- Fifty percent of all Ukrainian men between the ages of 13 and 29 have fertility problems - the highest rate of infertility in the world.
- According to radiation health experts most cancers that result from radiation exposure do not develop until 10 - 20 years after exposure. Therefore no accurate assessment of Chernobyl's overall impact can be made until this period has elapsed.
- A 2001 study by American and Ukrainian scientists identified a significantly higher rate of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia among children in northern Ukraine, as compared to the relatively uncontaminated Eastern Ukraine. Blood tests of the children showed that they had been exposed to radiation in utero. This study was re-confirmed after several international peer reviews.
- Since 2005, local paediatric oncologists in the northern Ukrainian region of Rivne, have been reporting a noticeable increase in acute lymphoblastic leukaemia among young children. All these children are from the most isolated contaminated villages along the Belarusian border.
- In Belarus there has been a 2,400 % increase in the rates of thyroid cancer. Before Chernobyl, on average, there was less than one case of thyroid cancer per year.
- In the Gomel region of Belarus, the region closest to Chernobyl, there was a 100-fold increase in thyroid cancer.
- Throughout Belarus, the incidence of thyroid cancer in 1990 was already 30 times higher than in the years before the accident
- In the Gomel region of Belarus, the incidence of leukaemia increased 50 % in children and adults.
- UNICEF reports that between 1990 and 1994, nervous system disorders increased by 43 %; cardiovascular diseases by 43 %; bone and muscle disorders by 62 %; and diabetes by 28 %. UNICEF cautioned that it is difficult to prove whether these increases were caused by radiation or another unknown factor.
- A Swiss study shows a 40 % increase in all kinds of cancers in Belarus between 1990 and 2000.
- Tumour specialists fear that a variety of new cancers will only emerge 20 - 30 years after the disaster.
- Five years after the disaster, the Ukrainian Ministry of Health reported three times the normal rate of deformities and developmental abnormalities in newborn children, as well as an increased number of miscarriages, premature births, and stillbirths.
- Heart disease in Belarus has quadrupled since the accident, caused by the accumulation of radioactive caesium in the cardiac muscle. Doctors report a high incidence of multiple defects of the heart - a condition coined "Chernobyl Heart."
Many radioactive elements are similar to the natural and vital minerals that our bodies need. For example:
- Plutonium is the most toxic substance man has ever produced, and it does not exist in nature. The body treats it as iron, due to the chemical similarity. It gets distributed by the blood system to feed growing cells. It can cause a variety of cancers and blood disorders.
- Caesium-137 is mistaken for potassium, which is needed by every living cell, by the body. It then concentrates in the muscles.
- Iodine-131 is absorbed by the thyroid gland, which cannot determine whether it is natural or radioactive iodine. The thyroid gland makes important hormones to help the body function. Iodine 131 causes cancer and other disorders in the thyroid gland.
- Strontium-90 fools the body into accepting this element as calcium. It gets distributed throughout the bone structure and can cause leukaemia and a number of cancers, along with numerous other health problems.
ENVIRONMENTAL
- In the first weeks after the explosion excessive levels of radiation were recorded in northern Scandinavia, Wales, Ireland, Northern Italy, Greece and coastal Alaska.
- As a result of prevailing winds and rains, the heaviest radioactive fallout was in southeast Belarus and northern Ukraine.
- In Ukraine, over 4.6 million hectares of some of the most productive agricultural land in the world became contaminated.
- The total amount of radiation released was originally reported as 50 million curies by Soviet authorities. During the past decade, subsequent research and new calculations have resulted in revised estimated of up to 260 million curies.
- A permanent zone where human habitation and agricultural use is forbidden was established around the power station. North, east and south of the power plant the 'exclusion-zone' extends about 30 km, and about 60 km to the west.
- Gradual seepage of radiation into the water table, especially the Dnieper River and its tributaries, threatens the water supply for millions of people in coming decades.
- Twenty-one percent of prime Belarusian farmland remains dangerously contaminated from the decaying components of plutonium.
- Radiation concentrated in sediments at the bottoms of lakes and ponds - the population continues to contaminate itself by fishing there. The average concentration of radionuclides in the groundwater has risen 10 to 100 fold.
- Although the air outside the exclusion zone is generally safe, ploughing, summer forest fires, and wind erosion continue to put the air at risk.
- In 2006, veterinarians in Rivne province, Ukraine, issued warnings to the northern contaminated villages that nearly two-thirds of the dairy cows in these villages are suffering from bovine leukaemia caused by radioactive elements, and that milk and other dairy products from these cows should not be consumed.
SOCIAL
- About 500.000 people were evacuated after the accident. 140.000 of them are not allowed to return.
- People from all Soviet Republics were sent to the disaster area between 1986 and 1990 to assist with the clean up efforts. Their tasks included evacuating contaminated villages, bulldozing contaminated houses, and fighting the fires at the Chernobyl plant itself. These men unknowingly exposed themselves to horrific amounts of radiation and are now paying a terrible price. It is still unclear exactly how many people took part. Figures vary between 300.000 and 900,000 depending on the source.
- During the past decade, approximately 40,000 clean up workers have died, mostly men in their 30s and 40s. 1.2 million people continue to live on lands contaminated by ' low-level ' radiation, outside the exclusion zone; approximately 1,800 villages effected.
- After the Chernobyl accident, almost 400,000 were forced to leave their homes as 'environmental refugees'. Over 2,000 towns and villages were bulldozed to the ground, and hundreds more stand abandoned.
- Some deserted villages have been reoccupied by refugees from places as far away as Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan. These refugees would rather live in a contaminated area than risk being shot in the wars and conflicts in their own homelands. For the original inhabitants of these villages, seeing people move into their ancestral homes and lands only adds to their heartache.
- Many Belarusians live in fear, uncertain about the extent to which their health and that of their children is at risk, and not knowing where to turn for information. This fear is exacerbated by the fact that the extent of the accident was not openly disclosed for many years. "Radiophobia" makes it hard for many in the community to move on with their lives and help themselves.
ECONOMIC
- The Institute of Economics of the Belarusian National Academy of Sciences estimates that the country's economic damage over 30 years (1986 - 2015) will be $235 billion, or over 32 annual national budgets. Chernobyl-related costs accounted for 16.8 per cent of the country's national budget in 1991, and in 1996 it was still 10.9 per cent. Currently the republic is investing about 6 per cent of its budget in the official Chernobyl programme.
- According to a survey by UNDP and UNICEF, in the contaminated territories of Belarus, 54 large agricultural and forestry enterprises and nine industrial enterprises had to be closed. 22 raw material deposits could no longer be used. In the contaminated territories of Ukraine, 20 collective farms and 13 companies had to be abandoned.
- Belarus and Ukraine levy an emergency tax, or Chernobyl tax, for dealing with the disaster. Initially, all companies, except for those in the agricultural sector, had to pay 18 or 19 per cent of their salary costs to the State. This tax is still levied in both countries, but has now dropped to only four per cent in Belarus. Russia never levied a Chernobyl tax. There, government borrowing funded the State's costs.
- In 1997 the international community entrusted the EBRD with managing the Chernobyl Shelter Fund. The G7 countries, the European Union, Ukraine and other countries have so far pledged approximately € 720 million to the fund. The CSF finances a comprehensive programme to deal with the long-term dangers posed by Chernobyl. Along with constructing the new containment shelter, the programme includes stabilising the existing shelter and providing an integrated monitoring system to report on radiation, structural stability and seismic events, among other things.
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
 |