Physical toll of 1986 accident grows as uncertainties weigh on psychological wellbeing.
If anyone can understand what the workers at Japan’s stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant are going through right now and what they may face in the years to come, it’s Yuriy Andreyev.
He was an engineer at the Chornobyl power plants when it exploded on April 26, 1986, and now heads an organization that supports the liquidators who cleaned up after what remains the world’s worst nuclear accident.
I saw people whose skin was coming off and their mucous membranes were burned off by radiation.”
– Yuriy Andreyev, Chornobyl power plants engineer.
“I saw people whose skin was coming off and their mucous membranes were burned off by radiation. There were people who began to throw up blood constantly and were suffering from bloody diarrhea and they knew that was the end. I see people now who live lives of invalids,” said Andreyev in an interview, his hands shaking slightly and his eyes wandering around walls of the office covered with pictures of colleagues.
Although the ongoing problems at the Fukushima plant, which was struck last month by an earthquake and tsunami, are widely considered to be not as severe as Chornobyl, that nuclear accident offers a unique insight into what lies ahead for the brave workers battling to control the situation, as Andreyev and his colleagues did 25 years ago.
Within three months of the accident, around 30 had died, mostly plant workers and first responders. Several hundred thousand so-called “liquidators” who helped clean up the plant after the explosion were exposed to high levels of radiation. Andreyev says they have since suffered from leukemia, cancer and numerous other diseases.
A contentious debate surrounds the effect of Chornobyl in terms of the number of deaths it caused. A report by several United Nations agencies published in 2005 estimated that 4,000 people would die from illnesses related to the accident. Andreyev’s organization, the Chornobyl Ukraine Union, says the figure is closer to one million.
Police restrain activists from Femen, the women’s rights group, during a protest outside the international donors conference on Chornobyl in Kyiv on April 19. The poster reads: “[President Viktor] Yanukovych is worse than radiation.” On April 26, Ukraine marked the 25th anniversary of the explosion at the Chornobyl nuclear power plant. Ukraine is trying to raise 780 million euros for a new containment cover, but has just 550 million euros in pledges.(AP)
Andreyev himself avoided fatal injuries, but has nevertheless gone through multiple operations and suffers from a heart condition.
He said that much of the work of the thousands of liquidators was wasted and not organized properly. Worryingly, he believes Japan is repeating many of the mistakes made by the Soviet authorities.
Ukraine and the liquidators are still toiling with the physical and financial toll of the accident.
Protests have been held in central Kyiv in recent weeks by liquidators complaining about what they say is an attempt to cut their already meager benefits, such as discounts on utilities and free use of public transport.
I had great health before going to Chornobyl as a radiation checking doctor. Three months later I started coughing severely and then it turned out to be asthma.”
– Maya Parhomenko, former Chornobyl medical worker.
“I had great health before going to Chornobyl as a radiation checking doctor. Three months later I started coughing severely and then it turned out to be asthma,” said former Chornobyl medical worker Maya Parhomenko, 75.
Andreyev says personal radiation checks were lowered so no one knew the exact harm done to their health. Walks from home to work and living in surrounding areas were not officially considered an exposure to radiation, he said.
But the most lasting and widespread consequence of the accident for workers and the thousands who lived around the plant is not physical, studies say, but psychological – the fear of not knowing what doses they received and how it affects their health.
Psychologists say there is a tendency to link illnesses to Chornobyl, even though in many cases health problems were caused by other factors sometimes linked with the upheaval following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Valentyna Lototska, 66, was evacuated from the small town of Poliske some 35 kilometers from Chornobyl to the town of Baryshivka south of Kyiv where she was given a small apartment. Lototska’s husband, who worked as an evacuation driver, died 11 years after the accident.
“He was completely healthy before it all happened,” she said. “After the accident he lost all of his teeth, got heart problems and died of liver cirrhosis.”
Yakov Kenigsberg, the chairman of the National Commission on Radiation Protection in the government of Belarus, said it’s hard to trace the connection between radiation and cancer. “It’s often hard to figure out what caused it – radiation, bad ecology or lifestyle choices,” Kenigsberg said.
Tatiana Melnitskaya, a psychology professor at the Obninsk Institute of Atomic Energy in Russia, said the problem was exacerbated by a lack of information.
“At the very beginning, people didn’t get any full and comprehensive information about radiation,” Melnitskaya said. “At the same time they underestimate the damage caused by stress they’ve been through.”
Stressful situations like evacuation from their homes, failure to get decent housing or jobs in a new place or the inability to make money to sustain the family eat away at both emotional stability and health. Some people made it even worse by adopting a fatalistic attitude to life, abusing their bodies with alcohol and eating mushrooms from contaminated areas under the impression that they were going to die anyway.
At the very beginning, people didn’t get any full and comprehensive information about radiation.”
– Tatiana Melnitskaya, a psychology professor.
“On the one hand, people are obsessed with fear of radiation. They think if they have a headache it must have been caused by Chornobyl,” Melnitskaya said. “On the other hand, many of them disregard some basic tips as not to pick berries and mushrooms in contaminated areas, or abstain from smoking and drinking.”
At the same time, social and economic instability following the collapse of the Soviet Union gave some people little choice but to gather what food they could in order to feed their families, even if they knew it could be contaminated.
But the attitude taken by some of “victim” rather than “survivor” leads to lasting depression and dependence on government benefits, according to Liudmyla Boyko, director of a social and psychological rehabilitation center in Kyiv Oblast. They are heavily dependent on aid from the government or charities and tend to behave passively, waiting for help rather than acting and making a change, she said.
Maryna Skliarenko, who moved out of the contaminated area to Russia and then returned to live in Kyiv, said she believed the government should offer more support. “We are totally neglected. The government ignores us,” she said.
Nevertheless, some people find strength to fight and improve their life. Natalia Bashynska, 18, from Korosten survived thyroid cancer. The disease didn’t break her spirit, and now she’s got a part-time job as a nurse at a local hospital.
“I don’t want to feel like a victim,” she said. “The worst is already over.”
Kyiv Post staff writers Yuliya Raskevich can be reached at [email protected] and Olesia Oleshko at [email protected].
