Deadly legacy

Twenty-five years ago today, the world witnessed its worst civilian nuclear disaster ever when reactor number 4 in the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded, throwing a plume of radioactive debris — the largest in the history of nuclear power into the atmosphere. The reactor’s meltdown killed 30 people within three months.

However, it is in the years that followed that the full horror of the disaster became evident. Greenpeace has alleged that exposure to radiation caused a quarter million cases of cancer, 1,00,000 of which ended in death. A UN study found around 7,000 cases of thyroid cancer in children in the affected area, most of which was attributed to their drinking milk contaminated by radiation. A disaster that occurred 25 years ago continues to have devastating impact on survivors, damaging immune and endocrine systems leading to accelerated ageing, cardiovascular and blood illnesses and so on. It is believed that roughly 8 million people in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia have been scarred permanently.

Following the Chernobyl disaster, a sarcophagus was built as a temporary measure around the wrecked reactor to stop radiation from spreading. This shelter is now cracking. A donors’ conference to raise $1billion for a new cover for the reactor fell short by $298 million. This stinginess could prove extremely costly. We cannot afford another disaster at Chernobyl.

The Chernobyl disaster should have served as a wake-up call to the enormous perils of nuclear power. It should have prompted the world to put in place a time-table for ridding the world of nuclear weapons, indeed of nuclear energy. Sadly it did not. The deadly consequences were attributed to the Soviet Union’s failure to act promptly. Indeed, Moscow was silent on the accident for three days and then played down magnitude of the disaster. It was far too busy indulging in cover-up to protect people in the affected zone. Still, the lessons that Chernobyl held out were not specific to mistakes made there.

It applied to the use of nuclear power in general. Yet the world did not learn any lessons. The recent disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, although triggered by different circumstances, has raised questions over whether nuclear power can ever be made sufficiently safe.